


One Does Not Simply Sleep With Steve Rogers

by thegraytigress



Series: The Sexy Misadventures of Agents Romanoff and Rogers [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, BAMF Natasha Romanov, F/M, First Time, Fluff, Mildly Dubious Consent, Romance, Virgin Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 21:25:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5717626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegraytigress/pseuds/thegraytigress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha inexplicably finds herself on a righteous and bizarre quest to protect Steve's virtue, even from herself.  The weirdest thing about it all, though?  The prize at the end of the quest <i>is</i> Steve's virtue.  Go figure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Does Not Simply Sleep With Steve Rogers

**Author's Note:**

> **DISCLAIMER:** _Captain America: The Winter Soldier_ and _The Avengers_ are the properties of Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Studios, and Marvel Studios. This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended.
> 
>  **RATING:** E (for language, violence, adult situations, strong sexual content)
> 
>  **AUTHOR’S NOTE:** Okay, so this is the smuttiest thing I have ever written. It also got ridiculously long. Poor virgin Steve :-P. Think of "Red Rain", only with a pretty big role reversal and without the angst (well, with a lot less angst). Extra special thanks to [faith2nyc](http://faith2nyc.tumblr.com) for all the help with this story. You're the best! Also, I marked this with slightly, mildly dubious consent because there's a part where Natasha could have taken advantage of Steve because of his state of mind, but she doesn't. Still, the situation is there so be advised and read at your own discretion.

“Do you think _all_ of him is enhanced?”

“What do you mean?”

There was a pause and then a series of giggles, and Natasha had to fight not to roll her eyes.  This was hardly the first time she’d come across a bunch of women gossiping about a male co-worker in the locker room.  It was usually the younger agents, the rookies and the recruits, who sunk (that was pretty harsh, but it was how she felt) down to this sort of crap.  The star-struck, naïve types who got one good look at a higher-level agent (particularly those whose reputations around the Triskelion as spies or soldiers were somewhat legendary) and went absolutely brain-dead with reverence and adulation.  If said higher-level male agent was good-looking, it was worse.  After the Avengers had formed, Thor had had a flock of women ogling him from afar bigger than the latest heartthrob had tweenagers screaming.  SHIELD was surprisingly prone to stuff like this, to ridiculous gossip and objectification.  Sex and power were interchangeable in their world, and the former could be rather meaningless given how cold and unforgiving their careers were.  Most of the time, she didn’t care at all if other women wanted to gossip, even though it was equally likely the male recruits did the same about her (which was revolting, intriguing, and slightly empowering all at once because she knew damn well they were all too terrified to ever say anything to her face, let alone make good on their talk).  She chalked it up to celebrity status in a sense.  A gross and maybe slightly demeaning sense.  It was what it was.

But this wasn’t just innocent banter or silly gossip or stupid sex talk or anything like that.  As Natasha finished with her hair, she recognized the voices, and the brush slowed in her hand.  That was Jackson and Lafferty, the two female members of the STRIKE Team.  _The STRIKE Team,_ for God’s sake.  And Andrea Shea, who worked in Pierce’s office.  And Lillian What’s-Her-Face from accounting.  _What the hell?_   “I mean, do you think he’s hung?  Endowed?  Why do I need to explain this to you?”

“I know what you mean,” one of the women – Lillian, Natasha thought – snapped in a low voice.  “I’m not stupid.  I was just wondering when they strapped him down and pumped him full of the super soldier serum if it bypassed any parts of his anatomy.  Like his dick.  And I was trying not to be so fucking crude.”

The irony.  It wasn’t lost on Natasha.  Nor was the fact that they weren’t talking about just _another_ male co-worker.  They weren’t just gossiping about just anyone.

They were talking about Steve.

That didn’t sit well with her _at all._

She supposed the “enhanced” part should have tipped her off instantly.  After all, how many _other_ SHIELD agents did they have on staff who fit that description?  _And_ looked as good as Steve Rogers did?  With that ridiculous body of his, the eight pack of abs and perfect swell of muscles up and down his back and chest.  Those arms and all of their nicely visible tendons and veins.  His long legs.  The drool-worthy proportion of his broad shoulders to his narrow, tapered waist.  His posterior, which in conjunction with said waist and hips should be illegal.  And his face.  Handsome didn’t really begin to describe it.  Those baby blue eyes and a plush, full lower lip that simply _begged_ you to kiss it.  Long, lush eyelashes that were the natural envy of every woman ever.  Thick, dirty blond hair that was meant to be perpetually mussed from the neat style in which he normally kept it.  The way he smiled and the way he blushed and the way he looked when he was firm and stern on the battlefield.  The way he moved and the way he talked.  There wasn’t much about Captain America that _wasn’t_ perfect.

But, then, that was the point, wasn’t it?  Of the enhancement?  To take the epitome of humanity’s sickest, weakest, _frailest_ specimen and turn it into the pinnacle of humanity’s potential?  That was where most people’s understanding of the situation ended.  The superficial appearance of it all, the _surface_ improvements.  And Natasha wasn’t blind.  She’d been Steve’s partner for more than six months now, so she worked closely with him.  The enhancements were…  well.  They were something, no doubt about that.  But there was so much more to him _inside_ that no one much saw.  Even she, as hardened and cynical as she was, could recognize it for what it was.  The goodness.  The valor.  The bravery and honesty and compassion.  Legend had it that all that had been there before he’d been injected with the super soldier serum, and Natasha now believed that whole-heartedly.  The man beneath the shield.  The man who _made_ Captain America.  He’d needed _nothing_ to improve his soul.

Not that that mattered at all to this conversation.  Here and now, Captain America was a piece of meat.

Andrea was going on.  “I saw pictures of him before they beefed him up.  It’s a logical thing to wonder.  You guys work with him.  Haven’t you seen him naked at least once?  Didn’t he get shot a few weeks ago?”

“Yeah.”

“And didn’t they have to cut his clothes off or something?”

“That’s not how it works,” Lafferty replied.  “And it’s not like anyone can get close to him.  Romanoff’s got him tied to her at the hip.”  Natasha stiffened, dark anger simmering more in her chest.

“ _She’s_ sleeping with him?” Lillian hissed.  “Black Widow’s sleeping with Captain America.  You’re so full of shit.  She’d eat him alive.”

“Even if she’s not, she’s obviously marking her territory.  If you want to know how big he is, you better ask her.”

“God, no.  She’d eat _me_ alive.”  Natasha was tempted to do much worse just listening to them.  And it wasn’t that she was jealous (not at all, right).  She was Steve’s partner, his friend, the person to whom Fury had assigned the gravely important task of ensuring Captain America adjusted to the 21 st century.  That included looking out for his reputation as much as his well-being.  “Makes you wonder, though.”

“What?  About something else other than his dick?”

“Nothing.  He seems like the submissive type.  He’s all Mr. Big Man on the battlefield, but maybe he’s _really_ eager to follow orders in the sack.”  They all laughed at that.  Steve wasn’t here, couldn’t hear this, but Natasha felt embarrassed on his behalf.  She didn’t know any of these women all that well, Lillian and Andrea only by name, so plotting ways to make them suffer for this bullshit was all too easy.  “I wouldn’t mind having him tied up and at my mercy.”

“I doubt he’s into kinky shit like that, Lillian.”

“How do you know?  I bet he’d look _really_ good on his knees.”

“Jesus.  Shut up.”

“Hey, he can tie _me_ up any time he wants,” Andrea added.  “For truth, justice, and the American way.  If he wanted to bang me like a screen door in a hurricane, I’d let him.  In heartbeat.”

“Bang you like a drum in a Fourth of July parade.”  That was godawful terrible.  Natasha felt herself grinding her teeth as they laughed and giggled.  Pissed off didn’t describe how she was feeling right now.  She _was_ Steve’s partner and friend and in charge of his education and acclimation in the future.  And maybe he was a tad incompetent around women, a tad easily flustered in this new time with all of its tech and pop culture references and outward attitudes about sex and intimacy.  Maybe.  But she wasn’t his guardian.  “Make you see fireworks and spangled stars explode?  Make you pledge allegiance to that ass?  God bless America?”

Not only was it mean, it was in really poor taste and not even clever.  “Whatever he’s into, I’d humor him.  Oh, baby.  If he looked twice my way, that’d be all it’d take.”

To hell with not being his guardian.  Natasha silently stowed the rest of her things in her locker and stood.  She was about ready to stalk over there and give these women a piece of her mind (and maybe more than that) when Jackson suddenly spoke up.  She’d been quiet all this time, which wasn’t uncommon for her.  She was cold, humorless, and could be cruel when it suited her.  It suited her often.  “You three are fucking morons.  Rogers is a virgin.”

Everyone went quiet and still, including Natasha.  She simply stopped like her brain had short-circuited because it _had_ in a sense.  Jackson sounded even more irritated.  “Captain America.  The symbol of wholesome purity.  Honor and valor and all that bullshit.  It’s not an act.  He believes that crap.  Ergo he is what he looks like.  Ergo he’s never been with anyone.  I guarantee it.”

It was still silent.  Minds blown, it seemed.  Natasha didn’t even know why because it _did make sense._   It completely fit with Steve’s character.  Granted, this was a massive assumption.  He’d been a soldier in a war, and that usually led to alleviating tensions and exercising pent-up passions in whatever ways one could with whomever was available.  He’d grown up poor and in rough times, and even if he hadn’t had much luck with the ladies because of how he’d looked back then, that didn’t mean he hadn’t had any luck at all.  He’d spent _months_ traveling around with a flock of USO girls, for Christ’s sake.  Any one of them could have made a move on him.  Plus there were other things.  Steve’s relationship with Peggy Carter, for one.  That wasn’t common knowledge, but Steve had told Natasha about it.  He’d trusted her enough to reveal how his heart had been broken because of the cruel twist of fate that had separated him from the woman he’d loved during World War II.  Of course Natasha had never directly _asked_ him how far things had gone between him and Carter, who was now sadly dying of dementia.  That would be the height of impropriety.  However, she got the feeling it was more of a “what if” than a “what was”.  She had no way to be certain of that, but she was perceptive and she understood grief.  Steve’s was fairly easy to read.  He was lamenting a lost chance with someone he’d deeply adored.

So, yes, Steve being a virgin?  It seemed likely.  But it wasn’t something she’d ever really thought about, which was, admittedly, somewhat strange for her.  She was a spy, and she used sex quite often as a means to an end.  It was simply part of what she did.  Get close to her mark.  Seduce him.  Sleep with him if necessary.  Take what she needed to or kill who needed to be killed.  And leave like she’d never been there at all.  That was what she’d been trained to do in the Red Room, and she was the best in the world at it.  There was a reason she was called Black Widow, _a_ _very good reason_.  SHIELD wasn’t quite so demanding of this particular skillset of hers; she rarely went that far nowadays, having sex to get a mission done, but she had in the past.  Regardless, love had no place in her world.  She judged a man _exactly_ like they were judging Steve, though more professionally in a sense.  Less lasciviously and more practically.  She could turn herself into whatever the situation required, whatever taste or experience her mark wanted.  Therefore, figuring out if, how, and why a man made love was part of her job.

But she’d never done that with Steve.  She respected him far too much for that.  He was a good man, a _really good and decent_ person, and those sort were in short supply these days.  He was Captain America.  He was a phenomenal fighter, soldier, and leader.  More than that, though, he was her partner.  Her friend.  Someone about whom she had grown to care very deeply.  Someone she sparred with, bantered with, ate pizza with and watched bad TV with.  She trusted him with her life, and there were very few people in this world about whom she could say that.  So this had _never_ crossed her mind before now.  Sure, maybe she’d wondered once or twice.  It had been a fleeting thing in the back of her thoughts, like when Steve had confessed to her about Peggy or maybe when she’d watched him awkwardly try to extricate himself from some unwanted female (and male) attention in the past.  Could he really be _that_ innocent?  That untouched?  It was practically unheard of nowadays for a man in his late twenties to have _never_ had sex, particularly in their world.  One didn’t tend to bother with frivolities like love and commitment and all that trite crap when one’s life was on the line every other day of the week.  Standing there right now and truly considering it, though, she had a feeling Steve would.

And she wasn’t the only one.  She could almost hear Jackson sneer.  “You really think Rogers with all his Golden Generation sensibilities is engaged in some kinky relationship with anyone.  You guys are fucking morons.”

And then they started in with the same arguments Natasha had just made to herself.  “He’s not a virgin.  He can’t be.  Who the hell is a virgin anymore?”

“He’s a soldier.  Soldiers get laid.  That’s what they do.”

“… Maybe he’s gay.”  Natasha bristled even more.  Not that there was anything wrong with that, of course, but the way _they_ said it made it sound there was.  “Maybe that’s why he’s so damn blind to how much we’re all trying to come onto him.  He swings the other way.  Would make sense with him and his, uh, Howling Commandos.”  Someone laughed.

“That’s not it.  I’ve seen him checking out Romanoff,” Lafferty countered.  She huffed a short sigh.   “Every time he thinks she’s not looking he’s staring at her ass or making freaking heart eyes.”  She paused a moment.  “Maybe you’re right, though, about all his sensibilities.  But if they’re together and he was a virgin, he sure isn’t one anymore.  And she must have him whipped.  Coerced him good.  Bet he thinks it’s love.”

That… _hurt_ for some reason.  That these women thought she’d do that.  She wasn’t so much concerned for her own reputation; that never had and never would matter to her.  She knew her worth.  But it bothered her a great deal that they thought she would _use_ Steve like that.  That she would hurt him like that.  It bothered her _a great deal._ “He’s a virgin,” Jackson sternly insisted again.  “Romanoff’s not sleeping with him.  _No one is._   You can tell.”

“How?”

 _“You just can.”_   Jackson slammed her locker shut.  “No one can _act_ that wholesome.”

“Well, if she’s not, someone needs to be.  And if he is a virgin, someone needs to fix that shit like yesterday.  It’s a national crime not to.  Like treason or something.”  God, Lillian was a vapid bitch.  “Or at least not paying your taxes or not saying the Pledge of Allegiance.”

Another locker closed with a rattle.  Now it was Lafferty talking.  “If Romanoff’s not claiming him, then we’ve got free rein.  I wouldn’t mind being the one to pop his cherry.”

“You know it’s not going to be that easy.”

“Why the hell not?  If he’s _that_ innocent, the first woman who makes a real move on him is gonna win.”

“I doubt it.  One does not simply sleep with Steve Rogers.”  They all laughed.  Giggled.  At a fucking internet meme from a couple years ago mixed in with objectifying Steve like a goddamn trophy.  Natasha saw red.  “We should make a pool out of it.  Spread the word.  Anyone who wants in can put their money on the table. First person to bed the Cap wins.  And–”

Andrea shut up really quick when Natasha’s hand curled around her arm.  She spun the young woman, not violently but firmly enough to be threatening.  She was so enraged that it was all too easy to go into that dark place inside her where all of her deadly training could be brought to bear.  “You do that, and I will make sure you regret it for the rest of your life,” she hissed softly.

Andrea was terrified.  Her eyes were wide.  The color drained from her face in a blink.  She was practically trembling.  “I – I, um – I just–”

“Save it,” Natasha snapped.  She released the girl’s bicep.  The skin was red beneath from how tightly she’d squeezed her.  Natasha forced herself to take a step back, a slow one.  She leveled an icy glare at the group of women.  The two non-combat ready staff were absolutely panicked, frozen with abject horror.  Even Lafferty and Jackson, as hardened as they were as STRIKE ops specialists, were afraid.  She could tell.  _Good._   Natasha folded her arms across her breasts, narrowing her eyes.  “This is completely unacceptable.  You are gossiping about your commanding officer.  Your _commanding_ officer.  Do I need to remind you about appropriate SHIELD conduct?  Because what you’ve just done breaks any number of serious rules, including not slandering other agents.”

“N-no, ma’am,” Andrea stammered.

“No, ma’am,” Lillian parroted.

It was hard not to feel just a little sadistically gleeful at how frightened they were.  Really, despite all the crap they’d just said, they were ants in comparison to Captain America and Black Widow.  Two level eight agents, two _Avengers_ , against an accountant and a secretary?  And even Jackson and Lafferty were much lower level than they were.  She could make their lives a living hell and they had practically no recourse.  They wanted to talk about her devouring Steve?  She could do _so much worse to them._   She could _destroy_ them.

But that wouldn’t be right.  The Black Widow of a year or so ago wouldn’t have thought twice about eviscerating someone who’d hurt, wronged, or threatened her.  The woman Natasha was now, though, the woman who worked side by side with Captain America, _that_ woman wouldn’t retaliate so blindly.  Therefore, she tightened her expression into a scowl she knew went hand in hand with her reputation and glared the hell out of the four of them.  “Captain Rogers is not some _thing_ you can demean and objectify.  He’s not a prize you can win.  His private life is _none_ of your business.  Is that clear?”  They were too stricken to answer at first, so she stepped closer and lowered her tone further.  “Is that clear?”

“Y-yes, ma’am!” Andrea gasped.

“Yes!” Lillian said as well.

Lafferty and Jackson weren’t so quick to submit.  Of course they weren’t.  They fought with Natasha, and that brokered familiarity and comfort that had not been earned (and definitely never would be from here on out).  Still, they knew what was best.  Even if the STRIKE Team was close-knit and a bit more autonomous, Rumlow couldn’t protect them from Fury.  “Of course, Agent Romanoff,” Lafferty finally said.

“Apologies, Agent,” Jackson conceded through clenched teeth.

Natasha’s eyes glinted viciously.  “For the record, I am not sleeping with him.”  Andrea and Lillian had the decency to be ashamed.  “But he _is_ my territory because he’s my friend.  Don’t come anywhere _near_ my territory.  Don’t ever let me catch you doing this again.  If I hear one word of what you said here from anyone else, if I find out you’re spreading more gossip about Captain America, I’ll make sure Director Fury figures out _exactly_ where the rumors came from.”  She stepped closer again.  “And if any of you so much as glances his way without him inviting you to, all bets are off.  Understood?”  She didn’t wait for any affirmation this time.  “Get the hell out of my sight.”

They hurried to do just that, tails tucked between their legs.  Even Lafferty and Jackson practically bolted.  Natasha watched, smug and satisfied.  Then, when the locker room was empty and the high of putting them in their places faded, she released a breath she’d been holding.  Suddenly she didn’t feel right anymore.  And her mind was racing with what they’d said.  The idea of any of them laying a finger on Steve…  Okay, no bullshit.  _Jealous_ didn’t quite describe how that made her feel.  It was more like enraged and disgusted.  _None_ of these women were good enough for Captain America.  No one was.  And the mere idea of any of them using and coercing him into sleeping with them…  God, that scared her.  She felt physically ill.  It was a pang of nausea, of pain deep inside her.  Steve was so sweet and noble and so lonely and damn naïve and eager to please, she was worried he’d do it.  Someone could sweet talk his or her way right into his pants.  He’d be pissed off as all get-out if he could hear her thoughts right now, but it was true.  Someone needed to protect him.

And if he was a virgin…  That made her feel strange, too.  Intrigued.  Uncomfortable because there was no denying the warmth curling in her core at the thought of it.  The same sort of lusty, heady hunger that she’d heard in their voices.  _No._   She didn’t know if Steve had had sex, and she didn’t care.  It wasn’t her business.  _It’s not._

She stood there a moment, tortured, caught between feeling repulsed and more turned on than she wanted to admit, when her phone beeped in her pocket.  She pulled it out.  _Speak of the devil…_   It was a text from Steve.  _“Meeting with Fury.”_   She sighed, slipping her phone back into her jeans, before heading out of the locker room.  Her mind was still spinning through everything she’d heard (rather uselessly, no less, like wheels with no traction) as she made her way up the Triskelion.  He was right there sitting in the chairs in the “stew room” (as most of SHIELD called out) outside Fury’s office.  When he saw her approaching, he stood, of course, because he _was_ a gentleman and that was what you did when a lady entered the room (even if she was no lady).  She was so rattled she didn’t even notice him doing it.  “Hey,” he greeted.

It took her a moment to snap out of it.  “Hi,” she said.  Before she could stop herself, her eyes went up and down his tall form.  He always looked different to her in civilian clothes.  Plain jeans and polos and button-downs and the like.  More like Steve Rogers than Captain America.  The shirt he was wearing, the dark blue polo…  She’d bought that for him.  She’d helped him select a more modern wardrobe (at her insistence because he shouldn’t dress like an old man just because he was one.  Biologically anyway).  The blue brought out the depth of his eyes, though she hadn’t told him that at the time she’d picked it out for him.  She probably never would.  And she couldn’t process the fact that he looked… _different_ now.  Now she couldn’t stop wondering.  She stared at his face like she could figure it out that way.  Was he a virgin?  And what did it matter?  What did it matter if he’d never had sex?  Why the hell was it bothering her so much all the sudden?  Why did she suddenly want to know so badly?  _Nothing_ had changed from when she’d seen him earlier that day, but now _nothing_ was the same.

_What’s the matter with me?_

“Nat, you alright?”

His voice snapped her from her thoughts.  When she replied, her tone was sharper than she wanted it to be.  “Fine.  Is there a mission?”

He looked hurt and confused and that only made it all worse.  Unbidden an image came into her head of him, naked, on his knees like they’d said, on his knees _in front of her_ , hands on her hips and love in his eyes as he looked up at her.  Not just love.  Lust.  _Adoration._   What was it Lafferty had said?  _Heart eyes._   How could she not have noticed that?

And how the hell could she think this about her partner?

Again, he was talking, and she made herself pay attention.  “Probably.  Sitwell didn’t tell me much.”  His brow furrowed in concern.  “What’s eating you?”

“Nothing, Rogers,” she all but snapped.

That burned expression intensified, and Steve turned away.  “Alright,” he said emotionlessly.  “Just tryin’ to look out for you is all.”

 _Likewise._   She couldn’t say that, though.  She couldn’t tell him what those women had been saying about him.  And there was absolutely _no way_ she could ask him about any of it, especially not about _that_.  Down the hall, Fury’s door opened, and the Director stood there.  He looked at his two top agents, and that was all the signal she needed to get her head in gear and her body moving.

* * *

Working with Steve Rogers should come with a damn warning sticker.  Someone could plant it right on his ass; that was where everyone inevitably looked, anyway.  _“Warning: one does not simply work with Steve Rogers”._   Natasha smiled at that as she drifted up from unconsciousness.  _One does not simply work with him or sleep with him._   That was so incredibly stupid, but she was dazed and muddled enough not to care.  She’d gotten into more trouble since becoming his partner than she ever had before, and usually because of him and his need to “do the right thing”.  Like this time.  Like him insisting they run back inside the enemy’s stronghold after they’d already gotten the intel they’d needed just to make sure all the hostages got out.  A few hadn’t, as it turned out, so it was good they’d returned, but in the process of saving this last group of poor unfortunates who’d gotten wrapped up in these terrorists’ games, they’d been captured.  The last thing she remembered clearly was being overrun, overwhelmed, struck in the temple with the butt of a rifle, and watching helplessly as dozens of thugs took down Captain America.

It was an occupational hazard, being Steve’s partner.  Really.  She didn’t get paid nearly enough for this crap.

Natasha groaned when that slow and lethargic upward climb finally delivered her to awareness.  She chanced opening her eyes, but there were only a few blurry shadows overhead.  Even that paltry amount of light was too strong, though, and she immediately squeezed them shut again against the pain and nausea.  She swore lowly in Russian, forcing herself to breathe slowly through her nose to quell the misery.  Gradually her heart stopped pounding and the dizziness assailing her wasn’t quite so acute, so she tried again, this time with better luck.  Indeed, there were a great deal of blurry shadows.  Blinking a few times, she managed to focus better.  There was a dark ceiling made of metal with rusty pipes running its length.  She was laying on something cold and completely unforgiving.  Cement.  Stifling a groan, she pushed herself up with her elbows.  _Not a storeroom._   She winced, squinting against the agony splitting her skull, and looked around.  _Please not a storeroom._   She could see metal shelves bolted into the concrete walls.  All of them were empty, of course, and dusty and rusty.  The ceiling was pretty high overhead.  A heavy, metallic door, gray but discolored with brown in some spots, was at the far wall.  High above her on one side, there was a narrow window.  She could see it was dark outside, a lonely moon poking through a few wispy clouds.  At least they weren’t completely underground.  The window was completely out of reach, unfortunately, and there was some sort of sensor system up there to prevent break-ins.  There didn’t seem to be any kind of camera, but the mechanism was undoubtedly wired to an alarm.  A lonely lightbulb hidden underneath a wire cage was attached to the ceiling.  She sighed.  _Most definitely a storeroom._   If she had a dollar for every time someone had held her captive in a damn storeroom somewhere, she’d be as rich as Stark.  Frustrated, she looked around again.  Other than those few shelves, there wasn’t anything else in this room but her.

_Steve._

“Shit,” she whispered.  No matter how much it pained her, she clambered to her feet.  She grimaced as the room pitched and the shadows spun.  Sure enough, though, Steve was gone.  That frustrating memory lingering in her head of the last thing she’d seen – Steve buried under a whole company of armed terrorists – made her heart thunder in panic.  Bile burned the back of her throat, and she thought she was going to be sick.  She wouldn’t be.  She _couldn’t_ be.

_Steve was gone._

They’d taken him.  The terrorists they’d been sent to stop had him prisoner.  The mere thought was enough to lock her breath in her chest and distort her world until everything was hazy and gray around the edges.  She’d been in tough spots with Steve a bunch of times before (hence the need for the warning label) but not like this.  They’d always been together.  Trapped, but together.  Under heavy enemy fire, but _together_.  Lost out in the wilderness or hurt or in a million and one bad situations, but _always together._   Now he was gone, and she was alone.

_What the hell are they doing to him?_

She forced herself to calm down.  She was better than her emotions, than her fear and worry (even if _both_ were nearly unbearable, maybe the strongest she’d ever felt).  She was Black Widow.  She did _not_ panic.  So instead she ignored her throbbing heart and equally throbbing head and set to trying to find a way out of this.  They’d taken all her weapons, of course, as well as most of her gear.  The earpiece and mic of her comm link were gone, as well as the emergency transmitter on her belt (in fact, her whole belt was conspicuously missing).  They’d even found the knife in her boot.  Aggravated and feeling naked, she turned her attention to her surroundings.  The storeroom was small and felt like a damn box, a metal and concrete box from which there was no escape.  She’d never been claustrophobic before, but she felt that way now, trapped in a space that seemed to be shrinking.  The walls were seamless and obviously thick.  Impenetrable.  The door was firmly locked and flush to the frame and floor.  There was no knob on the inside and no way to open it.  The ceiling (and that one lone window) were completely unreachable.  The shelves were immovable.  There was no way out.

Natasha stood in the center of the room, breathing heavily, feeling absolutely helpless.  The silence was damn deafening with only the thundering of her pulse in her ears.  She practically itched with sweat, with useless, miserable energy.  She couldn’t escape.  She couldn’t do anything, and they had Steve.  They could be hurting him or worse.  Captain America was a mighty prize.  These terrorists were small game in the grand scheme of things, a growing but still limited problem, but there were endless evil regimes and vile scientists and maniacal madmen who would do _anything_ to get their hands on the world’s only super soldier.  Just considering that made her skin crawl.  She had to help him.

Unfortunately, the only thing it seemed she _could_ do was wait.  She wanted to hit something – _someone_ – she was so brutally frustrated.  As it was, she sat back down on the cold, hard floor, the icy misery harsh on her butt, and tried not to think.

It was easier than it sounded.

Thankfully, she didn’t have to wait too long.  It felt like an eternity of trying to clear her mind and keep her worries at bay, but she knew it wasn’t.  The metal door on the other side of the room slammed open, and the head of the terrorist cell charged inside, looking irritated.  Behind him, a whole company of his goons and thugs followed.  They were all armed with automatic weapons and looked about as pleased with whatever had happened as their leader was.

And – _thank God_ – they hauled Steve in with them.  His arms were bound behind his back with the thickest mag cuffs Natasha had ever seen.  He looked… okay enough.  His helmet, shield, and utility belt were gone.  His face was bruised, but he didn’t seem hurt otherwise.  Something wasn’t right, though.  She could tell instantly.  His eyes weren’t tracking as well as normal.  There was a faint but glistening sheen of sweat on his face.  He was stumbling but not in a way that suggested he was injured.  And he wasn’t struggling.  Even tied up, he could have done that.  He probably could have broken free even, though with the guns on them that didn’t seem wise.  Even still, he was oddly limp, not even _ready_ to fight.  Natasha couldn’t help but be extremely alarmed.

They dumped him on his knees right in front of her.  He looked up at her, and now she could see that something _really_ was wrong.  His eyes weren’t just not tracking right.  They weren’t focused at all, glassy, hazy in a way she hadn’t thought possible of him.  His pupils were blown wide.  He was flushed.  He was breathing heavily.  He seemed…  God, it shouldn’t be possible, but he _looked_ like he’d been drugged.

Obviously he had been.  While a few of the thugs held him there, another came over with a huge hypodermic needle.  Natasha jerked to help her partner, but there was nothing she could do.  A dozen rifles were pointed at her, stopping her dead in her tracks.  “What is that?” she demanded.  No one answered her.  She clenched her hands into fists at her side, but one of the terrorists was bold enough to ram his gun right into the small of her back just as the man with the syringe drove it right into the side of Steve’s neck.  Steve flinched but didn’t fight.  Natasha kept her face tight in a menacing scowl, but her heart was thumping hard and fast against her sternum in terror.  “What did you do to him?”

“We’re guaranteeing his cooperation,” the leader replied, his voice smug and oily.  He couldn’t entirely hide his frustration, though.  “This truth serum is highly experimental, Black Widow.  We paid a great deal of money for it.  Never guessed we’d be able to try it on Captain America.”

That didn’t seem possible.  Drugs didn’t work on Steve because of the super soldier serum.  His metabolism ran something like four times faster than that of a normal human, which meant most chemicals were in and out of his system too quickly to have any effect.  She’d seen the impact of that (both good and bad) before.  When they’d gone out drinking with the Avengers and Steve hadn’t been able to get even slightly inebriated.  When he’d been shot and had had to endure some surgery without the benefit of anesthesia.  It was a double-edged sword.  Here and now, it _should_ have prevented any psychotropic compound from having any influence on him.  Whatever “experimental” drug these assholes had managed to get a hold of, though, had obviously had a serious effect.  She couldn’t believe it.  Surely that meant whatever was in that needle was unbelievably strong, probably poisonous or fatal to a normal person.

The leader stepped closer, folding his arms across his chest.  He stood to Natasha’s right and looked down on his prisoner.  “How long?”

Steve only blinked like he simply couldn’t focus.  The man – doctor or scientist or whatever – pulled the needle away.  “An hour,” he suggested to the leader.  “By then, the serum will have built up in his system.  He’ll be completely unable to stop himself from answering your questions.”

“Are you sure?” the head terrorist asked, obviously none too pleased with the delay.

The man hesitated for a split second.  Obviously he _wasn’t_ sure.  That made Natasha’s blood simmer, that they were testing a potentially dangerous compound on Steve like this.  “Yes.”

The head terrorist smirked, happy about that at least.  “Do you hear that, Captain?  In an hour, you’ll talk.  You’ll tell me _everything_ I want to know about SHIELD and the Avengers.  And once you’ve done with that, we’ll ransom you and your partner back to the US Government.  With the money we make from that and selling SHIELD’s secrets to the highest bidder, we never need to worry about funding our little operation again.”

Steve lifted his head.  It seemed like that simple act was pretty difficult, so that didn’t bode well.  “Won’t say a damn thing,” he hissed through gritted teeth.  “And _that’s_ the truth.  The only truth you’re gettin’ from me.”

The leader smirked.  “Then we’ll need to resort to other methods of persuasion.”  The array of guns clicked as they were aimed directly at Natasha.  The man behind her lifted his rifle to very visibly point it at her head.  The threat was miserably clear and undeniable.  “She’s so pretty.  Like you said.”  Natasha gritted her teeth, standing stock still in front of Steve’s kneeling form.  She said nothing, betraying nothing of what she was feeling, even as the leader nearly ghosted his grimy fingers down her cheek.  He smirked.  “Would be a shame to shoot something this beautiful.”  Steve dropped his head again, shuddering through whatever the drugs were doing to him (hopefully not in defeat, but honestly she was worried).

Surprisingly, the men didn’t torment them any further.  “One hour,” the leader promised, and then they were leaving, guns trained on the two SHIELD agents as they exited the cell.  The door slammed shut with an echoing bang, and that was it.  They were alone.

Natasha looked down on Steve.  Unbidden ( _completely_ unbidden – because she hadn’t been thinking about it _at all_ over the last twelve hours since they’d left DC), that image came right back again.  Him on his knees before her.  Looking up at her like… like he was _now_.  What the hell?  Pupils blown wide, lips parted, desperate and trembling and _submitting_ , just like Lillian had said, and…  _“I bet he’d look really good on his knees.”_   Natasha felt that strange combination of sick and aroused again, and for the love of everything decent and noble and _for Christ’s sake stop it._

So she stopped it.  She dropped right down to her knees in front of him.  “Jesus, Rogers,” she whispered.  She was a little afraid to touch him, not so much because he was obviously not himself but because of what she’d been thinking.  She made herself do it, a giant _fuck you_ to all this subconscious bullshit.  She grasped his shoulders.  That was nice and safe.  “Are you okay?”

He sputtered on his breath a little.  “No, not really.”

“How much of that stuff did they give you?”

“A lot.  _A lot,_ a lot.  Too much probably.”  She pressed her fingers to his carotid artery and found his heart was racing.  His skin was hot and getting sweatier and more flushed by the second.  She’d been exposed to sodium amatyl and the like in the past.  In their line of work, it was almost a given.  If you were captured by the enemy and they wanted information, drugging was a tool to get it.  But this didn’t look like the effects of any truth serum she’d seen.  This looked more like…  Like he was high.

Really high and getting higher.

Not that people couldn’t run their mouths like this, too, but it seemed strange.  Whatever this shit was they’d dumped in his veins, it seemed like some weird combination of stimulants and depressants, because he was obviously clumsy and pretty well uncoordinated but his heart was pounding and he couldn’t seem to catch his breath.  Then again, who knew _what_ was in this drug they’d given him?  Or if it was safe?  And who knew how the super soldier serum would handle this?  Maybe it was causing the rapid heartrate, trying to counteract the depressants by increasing his metabolism.  Who could possibly tell?  It was unknowns piled on top of unknowns, and she wasn’t qualified to deal with any of it.  All she knew was they needed to get out of here.  Fast.  If he was already this intoxicated, she couldn’t imagine how he’d be when that hour was up.  Something told her it’d be in their best interests to be in the general vicinity of a med-evac.

Steve suddenly laughed.  “Oh, hell,” he whimpered.  “This is dandy.”

“What?”  She grasped his face and lifted his chin so that she could see in his eyes.  There was barely a rim of blue around his pupils they were so dilated.  “What’s the matter?”

He got a very concerned look on his face.  “I feel weird.”

“No shit,” Natasha said.  “This ever happened to you before?”  One laughably dry look from him was answer enough.  “Yeah, you’re in for a wild ride.”

“Ride where?  Where’re we goin’?” he asked, slumping into her.

Natasha almost fell backward with his weight.  Yeah, this was a problem.  Getting out of here was going to be a challenge if Captain America was incapacitated.  He was the brawn of their operation (not that he wasn’t smart, mind you, and not that she wasn’t strong, but he was damn efficient at doing physical stuff like busting open locked steel doors and lifting things that weighed a ton and plowing through enemy soldiers without breaking a sweat).  Without his help, it was going to be harder to escape.  Not only that, though, he was heavy.  She couldn’t carry him.  He had to walk, to fight.  There was no other option.  She forced herself to be calm, not to think about how hot and heavy he was against her, how he was _(Goddamn it, Rogers)_ nuzzling into her neck just a bit.  “You smell good.”

“You need to focus,” she said quietly, resisting the urge to hold him any closer.  It was hard to do that.  “It’s going to be really difficult.  You have to try to think.  Ever been drunk before?”

“Lord, Romanoff, I was small, not dead,” he replied.  “I’m not this prude everyone thinks I was.”  She cocked an eyebrow at that, trying not to read too much into it.  “’Course I’ve been drunk.  Couldn’t hold liquor for nothin’.”

She couldn’t imagine it.  She had a feeling, though, she was going to get a pretty good reenactment now, with all his slurring and snuggling.  “This is like that, only worse.  You’ll be _extremely_ open to persuasion.”  Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing.  Steve could be something of a stubborn pain in the ass sometimes (hence why they were in this situation to begin with), so maybe having him a little complacent would be okay.  As long as he was listening to her and no one else.  God, this felt wrong on so many levels.  Shaking her head against it all, she pushed him back.  “Sit up.  Now are you okay otherwise?”

His face fractured in confusion like he didn’t understand the question.  “They got a couple of good shots in.  My ribs hurt a little, but I think it’s fine.  And my wrist hurts.  The right one.”

 _Oh, my God._   Too bad the bad guys’ scientist wasn’t here for this undeniable confirmation that their truth serum was 100% working.  Steve Rogers, actually _truthfully_ answering a question about being hurt.  “Hell has frozen over,” she muttered, palpating along his chest through the protective padding of his SHIELD stealth suit.  She didn’t feel anything worse than what he said (not that she could feel his ribs, really, but there weren’t any obvious injuries).  “Okay.  Sit.  Stay.”

“’kay.”

She went around behind him and crouched, taking a good look at the cuffs.  These were high-tech.  Obviously this “minor” terrorist cell had fallen in with some more powerful bad guys if all these toys and drugs they had on hand to deal with a super soldier were any indication.  The cuffs were thick bands around his wrists, magnetically coupled.  A green light was flashing on the bottom of the left cuff, probably linked to some control device somewhere.  They’d stripped off his gloves, and his skin was cut and bloodied where the metal was digging into it.  His right wrist did look swollen.  “You try to pull these apart?”

“Yes,” he evenly answered.  “It worked great.”

“You get sassy when you’re drugged.”  He grunted, though whether from the comment or how she was gripping his hands, she didn’t know.  “On three.  One.  Two.  Three!”  Together they pulled, plying all their collective strength into separating the cuffs.  Nothing gave.  She could feel how hard he was trying, his biceps bulging beneath his suit and his muscles rigid with effort.  She gave it her all, too, but the electromagnetic force was too strong.  After a few seconds, they gave up.

Steve slumped forward.  “Ow,” he moaned.

She wasn’t about to surrender, though.  “Alright, alright.  Get your hands under your butt.”

He looked terrified, panting and wide-eyed.  “You want to get your hands on my – on my…”

“Christ, Rogers, _no._   Scoot your arms forward beneath you.  Let’s at least get your hands to the front of you.”  He still didn’t seem to follow, like his brain was stuck on the idea of her touching his ass.  She tried to be patient, knowing this was entirely the fault of the drugs in his system and not wanting to let her own awkward disquiet about that show.  “Like this.”  She sat on her rear, linking her hands together behind her and sliding them beneath her.  She bent her legs, wriggling with ease and practice until she’d worked her hands forward.  “One of many tricks to get out of cuffs.  I know you’re bendy.  Come on.”

He seemed dazed and confused a moment more, but his brain sluggishly kicked into gear.  He mimicked what he’d done, though it was harder for him.  He was taller, longer in the torso and the legs, and probably not as flexible.  “Bendy?” he grunted.  She grabbed his right arm at the elbow and helped him.  She could have sworn she heard his joints pop and snap as he worked.  He was sweating _buckets._   It was probably the serum trying to burn the drugs out and flush them.  “That a technical term?”

“Yes.  Keep going.”  A few more seconds of him squirming and struggling ended in success.  He winced, pulling his arms to his chest.  Suddenly he looked green about the gills.  “Okay?”

“Dizzy,” he moaned.  “Gonna throw up.”

“No, you’re not,” she said, far firmer about that than she actually was.  This sucked.  She didn’t know if she was more horrified on his behalf or angry at this entire situation.  “Deep breaths.  Nice and slow.”

He gasped a little.  “You sound like my ma.”

Now she did rub his arm soothingly.  “And you listened to her, right?”

“’Course.  I was a good boy.  It was Bucky who always got us into trouble.  I mean, well, I guess I started my fair share of things.  But I never crossed Ma.  She worked real hard, you know, so she deserved a good son.  That’s how I figured it, at any rate.”  Natasha smiled sadly.  Thankfully, he didn’t seem to notice.  Instead he laughed again, tipping his head back.  His Adam’s apple bobbed while he swallowed.  “Oh, God, this is bad.  Nat…  So damn hot.”  She stiffened.  She was even more grateful that he didn’t seem to notice _that_ reaction to his likely unintended double entendre _._   “I feel…  I feel…”

She needed to get him out of here.  “Stay,” she ordered again like he was a dog.  She stood, afraid he’d topple if she wasn’t there to support him.  He didn’t.  “Don’t talk.  Just breathe.”

“Gotta talk.  Like my brain’s cookin’ or somethin’.  Gotta talk.”  She ignored him, leaving him to go to the wall with the window.  He rolled forward, trembling.  “Where’re you goin’?  Don’t leave me!”

She’d never heard panic in his voice like that before.  “Calm down!  I’m just looking for a way out.  And talk if you want.”

He moaned.  “This is my fault.  All my fault.”

That wasn’t true, but it was very much honest, at least for him.  Sincere in a way she knew was intrinsic to Steve Rogers.  He always carried the world on his shoulders, even when he didn’t need to.  It had really bothered her at first, and it still did now but for different reasons.  In the beginning, she’d resented his genuine sense of self-sacrifice and dedication because _nobody_ should be that good.  It had made her feel nothing but inadequate.  Now…  Well, she didn’t like to think about how it – and he – made her feel now.  “I said talk, but I don’t want to hear your bullshit.”  She peered up at the window.

“It’s not bullshit,” he said.  It was really rare that he swore.  In fact, Natasha was fairly certain she’d never heard him do it before, at least not like that.  He slumped onto the concrete, curling on his side a bit.  Cursing was an unlikely occurrence, but seeing him _this_ vulnerable?  “I’m not gonna be able to stop myself.  If they come back and start askin’ me things.  This is terrible.  I’m a goddamn idiot.  Never thinkin’ anythin’ through.  Didn’t want them to hurt you, but you’d be better about it.  I know you would.  You’re good at lyin’.  You can fool anyone.”  He realized belatedly into his babbling that he’d said something that could come off poorly.  “Sorry.  Didn’t mean that.”

“Of course you didn’t.”  She knew how terrible this was, to have your will supplanted by a chemical reaction in your brain.  All your filters pulled away.  All your inhibitions stripped.  Walls and defenses and covers…  _Gone._   The worst part was you typically didn’t even realize what you were doing until long after the fact.  It felt _good_ to let go, and caring about being drugged, manipulated, and coerced was impossible to manage.  At least Steve seemed self-aware enough at the moment to recognize what was happening.  That probably wouldn’t last.

And then it occurred to her.  “What do you mean, ‘you didn’t want them to hurt me’?”  She narrowed her eyes, glaring at him.  Until now, she hadn’t realized how little sense this made.  Why were they even trying to give truth serum to Captain America?  Granted, these guys didn’t seem like the sharpest knives in the international drawer of villains, but even they had to realize she’d be an easier target.

He sniffled.  “Told them you didn’t know anything.  Told them SHIELD just uses you as eye candy.  Said you were an empty suit.”  He laughed to himself.  “An empty catsuit.”

Natasha shook her head.  “Goddamn it, Rogers.”

“I told you.  I messed it up.”  He covered his face with his bound hands.  “Everything’s all balled up.  Can’t think.  Whyzzit so goddamn _hot_?”

Natasha turned back to the window.  “It’s fine.  We’re going to get out of here.  Just give me a second to think.”  _Think._   There had to be a way.  They were two Avengers.  They were _not_ going to be interrogated by a bunch of lowlife scum like this.  She didn’t care who was funding these assholes.  “I’ll get you out of here.”  That last part was said more softly, like a promise to herself.

“You’re not an empty suit,” he whispered.  His eyes were bright and feverish, roving through the shadows.  They slipped over to her, and he grinned a dopey grin.  “You’re… you’re the bee’s knees, Nat.  Never met a dame like you.  Not even Peggy.  She was swell, don’t get me wrong.  She was amazin’.  But you’re…  Wow.  You’re _beautiful_.  D’ya even know how beautiful you are?  You’re like…  I want to draw you.  I think about it all the time.  You’re…  God, stop me.”

 _None_ of that made sense.  “What?”

He was physically shaking, like it was painful to control himself.  It might very well have been.  “I…  I…”  He was red in the face.  She felt _terrible_ for even asking him anything, but she’d been so surprised at what he’d just said that the word had just blurted from her mouth.  “I want…”

She wasn’t going to let him say whatever it was he was going to say.  Frustrated and rattled to her core, she stalked over to him.  “Get up.”  He looked absolutely wrecked.  “Come on, Cap.  On your feet.  I need your help.”  She reached down her hand, and he stared at it yet again like he didn’t understand.  Turning her voice sterner and her gaze colder, she sharply tried again.  “Now, soldier!”

He scrambled upward like he’d been yanked.  She felt bad for all of a second before dragging him by the arm over to the window.  “Give me a boost.”  He stared like she’d asked him for something else.  It was obvious what he was thinking.  And it didn’t matter that they’d done this a ton of times before, him lifting her or throwing her where she needed to be.  Stark had even taken to calling her Steve’s “little Russian missile”.  He was looking her over with wide eyes, and she knew the gaze well.  Apparently this truth serum hadn’t just gone to his brain.  She thought again about what the women in the locker room had said, but this was neither the time nor the place.  Not with whatever _he’d_ been about to say moments before.  Irritated, she went on.  “What are you waiting for?  That’s tall.”  She pointed at the window.  “I’m short.  Lift me up.”

He cupped his hands at his crotch and ( _holy hell_ ) she was not seeing what she thought she was seeing.  Averting her eyes, she stepped into his palms.  He wasn’t as steady as he normally was when he lifted her, and she immediately grabbed the smooth wall to steady herself (not that that did any good).  And, even though _they’d done this before_ , he didn’t seem to know where to put his hands.  On her calves.  Then on her thighs.  She wobbled, electrified by his touch and the fact that for the first time ever she was absolutely certain he was staring right at her ass.  How could he not be?  And he wobbled, fumbling, trying to grab her waist to steady her before he remembered he couldn’t because of the cuffs.  Instead his hands went right between her legs.  She gasped.  He staggered.  “Sorry.  Sorry!”

 _Oh, God._   It had been hardly nothing, just a brush of his palm, but it went straight to her core.  Suddenly all these things she’d been trying to deny she’d been feeling for months were undeniable.  It took a ridiculous amount of willpower to ignore that stab of lust inside the mere sweep of his fingers caused, but she was a professional and she had a mission.  “Just stop squirming around and lift me up higher!”

The tone of her voice (and her own refusal to admit a damn thing) seemed to ground him just enough.  As he gripped the inside of her thighs, she got her balance and sprung up high enough to reach the window.  She could still feel him shaking but at least he had her steady now.  “What’re you doin’?”

She took a moment to consider.  The pane was fairly thick.  She probably couldn’t break it without something more, but she could damage it.  Hopefully that would be enough.  “I’m tripping the sensor.”

“What?”

God, that drug had scrambled his brain.  “I am setting off the sensor,” she said more slowly.  She used her elbow to ram the glass.  Once.  Twice.  The blow hurt, sending a dull ache down her forearm.  Despite that, she kept hitting it until it cracked.

Steve stumbled a bit beneath her.  “Why in the world do you want to do that?  That’ll bring ’em back!”

“Yep,” she murmured, watching the sensor begin to flash red.  Normally she wouldn’t have to explain her thinking to him.  Normally he’d probably have come up with a plan (and probably one similar to this) all by himself.  But standing still and keeping his hands from drifting anywhere “inappropriate” on her seemed to be all he could manage.  “Down.”

He scrambled to do that, the most graceless thing he’d ever done, it seemed, and then her feet were hitting the concrete practically on top of his.  She was so close, pressed right to his chest.  Again, they’d _been_ this close before, but it was taking a moment like this for her realize the things she hadn’t felt before, _all_ those times before.  It practically crackled between them, this tension.  She could feel the strength of his muscles, the hard lines of his body flush to hers.  She could feel how hot he was, his color bright and erratic, his eyes swimming with far more than just the drug.  That look in his eyes she hadn’t been able to get out of her head since the locker room.  _Adoration._   He was trembling with it.  _It’s the drug._   He wanted to touch her.  She could feel that, too.  He wanted…

_No._

She pulled away like she’d been burned.  “Get by the door.  Left side.  They’re coming.”  He looked physically pained, mouth hanging open, eyes wide, practically whining.  “Come on!  Get over here!”  She didn’t feel entirely steady herself.  Annoyed, she glared at him.  “You need to fight,” she said slowly, annunciating every syllable.  “So get over _here_.”

He snapped to follow her command.  She slipped into the shadows alongside the door, pressing her back to the wall.  She gestured him to the other side, and he limped over like a lost puppy.  _God.  What the hell did I do to deserve this?_   She pressed her forefinger to her lips, reminding him to be quiet, trying not to notice how he was watching her.  Watching her mouth.  _God…_   She forced herself to breathe deeply and ignore all of it.  She wasn’t drugged.  It wasn’t fucking _contagious_.  If this stuff in his body was making him, well, _horny_ , she’d just have to be even stronger.

Damn it, this was wrong on _so many levels._   _I don’t get paid enough!_

Outside she picked up the thudding of boots.  Just as she’d predicted, the terrorists were coming.  There was shouting in Farsi, rough and aggravated.  She forced herself to relax.  The door would open to Steve’s side, blocking him which was probably just as well.  The sound of running men got louder and louder.  Any second now…

The door swung open, and she attacked.  She was fast, much faster than them, grabbing at the first gun that poked in from the outside.  Snatching the rifle, she yanked the man behind it into the room.  The man staggered with a cry.  She landed a brutal kick into his back, and he fell.  Three others remained.  She whirled, swinging the gun like a bat.  The butt of the rifle shattered the nose of the next terrorist.  He went down with a gurgle, tripping up his buddies.  She showed no mercy, leaping over the tangled pile of legs and arms.  It would be easier to simply shoot them, but the noise would be a dead giveaway.  Instead she punched hard and swift, aiming for one man’s neck and then swiftly targeting the other’s solar plexus.  He staggered back, smacking into the wall of the corridor behind them.  She followed, a beautiful wraith in the darkness, and took him down.

It was all over and done with in a matter of seconds.  Natasha stood outside, not even winded, listening for any sign she’d been heard.  It was completely quiet.  _Perfect._   She knelt among the men, grabbing a knife, a handgun, and another rifle.  “Rogers!” she hissed, searching pockets and vests for anything else of use.  Like a phone to contact SHIELD.  There was nothing.  There was also no movement behind her.  She glanced sharply over her shoulder.  “Steve!  Come on!”

He peeked out from behind the door, blue eyes wide.  “Is it okay?” he meekly asked.

She couldn’t believe this.  Snatching up the weapons, she stood and took his hand.  “Come on.”

So this was where they were now.  Black Widow was dragging a clumsy, staggering, high out of his mind Captain America through the winding halls of the terrorist base they’d already infiltrated and escaped once that night.  It was a maze, the belly of an abandoned power plant, filled with pipes and conduits and mechanical equipment.  It was clichéd, this place, but clichés and stereotypes often have some basis in reality.  She didn’t exactly know where they were; this wasn’t where the hostages had been held.  “Steve, you recognize this?”

“No.”

She growled in the back of her throat.  They’d waste time running around and risk recapture the longer they did.  They needed to find their gear and get the hell out of there.  She paused at a corner, thinking.  Up made more sense.

“You know what I think?”  Steve’s voice was painfully thunderous, echoing through the shadowy corridors.  He wasn’t speaking that loudly, but the mere fact he was talking at all like a time like this…  Natasha wanted to hit someone else.  Lots of someone elses.  “I think somethin’ was botherin’ you before.”

“Huh?” she said, not really paying attention.  There was another T-junction ahead.  Left or right.  At a complete loss and wishing he could focus enough to _help_ her, she picked left.  “What are you talking about?”

“Back in Fury’s office.  You kept – you were lookin’ at me funny.”  He leaned against the wall at the next corner while she tried to decide yet again which way to go.  His chest was heaving, his skin glowing in the dim, yellowed light with perspiration.  “And you got mad.  You always get mad when somethin’s botherin’ you.  You’ve kept your distance since we left DC.”

 _Not now._   “Can you focus!” she hissed.  It wasn’t a question.

He looked devastated.  There seemed to be _honest to God_ tears in his eyes.  “What’d I do to make you angry?”

 _Lord._   A whole string of Russian expletives prodded at her resolve.  She balled her fist into his uniform and pulled him along.  “Keep up.  And you don’t get to interrogate me.  That’s not how this works.”

He didn’t seem to listen.  “How come you don’t trust me?”

 _Lord.  God.  Goddamn it!_   “I trust you fine.  It was…”  Ahead there was a guard patrol.  Natasha moved like lightning, leaving Steve against the wall and charging the armed duo.  She leapt, getting her legs around one and her arms around the other.  They were too stunned even to begin to mount a defense, and it was too late at any rate.  Black Widow twisted, simultaneously ramming them both into the walls adjacent to them.  Heads smacked into concrete.  They crumpled, and she landed like a cat.  She straightened.  “It wasn’t something I could talk to you about.  That’s all.”

Steve looked like he’d been the one she’d hit.  “Why not?”

“Steve, God, stop it.  Stop it.  Not now.”  She wasn’t going to _ever_ tell him about what had been bothering her, not like this especially.  She went back to him, hating the devastated look on his face.  “It was nothing, okay?  Just… gossip.  Stupid crap.”

He looked confused.  “Gossip?”

She rolled her eyes a little and pulled him off the wall.  He was getting more and more uncoordinated, staggering like a drunkard.  “Yes.  Now can we get the hell out of here?”

With visible effort, he gathered himself.  He looked relieved now that she’d convinced him that nothing he’d done had upset her (only it was _everything_ he’d done and _everything_ he was that was upsetting her and that was becoming more and more undeniable and good God she couldn’t deal with this right now!).  She didn’t feel quite brave enough to touch him again, so she turned and raced down the next hallway and prayed he would follow.  Finally, _finally,_ she found a stairwell.

They went up step by step.  Steve was really dragging.  And his moods were shifting again, transforming from meek and despondent to chatty.  A veritable chatty Cathy.  God, this stuff was doing a number on him.  “You know what else I think, Romanoff?”

“Stop talking.”

“This ain’t as bad as I thought it would be.  Feels kinda nice, not caring.”  His Brooklyn accent was bleeding more and more into the words.  She’d never heard him like this before.  It was difficult not to run ahead, her muscles itching with that same restless energy, but she forced herself to stay back.  She was _not_ going to leave him like this.  “Kinda free.”

“Steve…”

“How come we stopped watchin’ movies?”

“What?”

“You were sposed to be teachin’ me culture, right?  Fury’s orders?”  She had been for a while.  For a while, they’d spent hours in their downtime in front of the computer, of the television, with books and music and everything he’d need to learn about society in the 21st century.  Their friendship had started there, in fact.  In the beginning, it had been a chore to her, something that should have been assigned to a lesser agent.  She’d even gone to Fury to complain about the detail, to attempt to get the Director to bestow this “honor” to someone else.  She had nothing against working with Captain America in the field, but doing this?  It had been beneath her, but more than that, it had been threatening, in a sense.  But Fury had refused.  She supposed she should have thanked him.  She couldn’t imagine anyone else having spent that time with Steve, getting that close to him.  Getting to know him like she had.  She’d watched him come out of his shell, watched him acclimate to this new world.  She’d seen him work through his grief, like the moment where he’d been candid about Carter, about Barnes, about his life before he’d been lost in 1945.  And as he’d adapted to her, she’d done the same to him.  She’d felt that distrust ease in her chest, taken some enjoyment in observing him learn.  It had been fun.  In so many places and with so many people, she had to act the part.  A SHIELD agent.  A seductress.  An Avenger and an assassin.  _Black Widow._   But with Steve back in his apartment, tucked into his couch watching _Star Wars_ or listening to new music over Chinese food or just talking about the merits of current political policies…  She could simply be herself.

Lately they hadn’t made the time so much, though.  Of course they’d been busy; they were among Fury’s top agents and Avengers to boot, so their skills were often called upon by the World Security Council.  Plus Steve trained recruits and consulted for the army.  She often worked with Hawkeye or other agents on varying ops where Captain America’s style of fighting (which admittedly wasn’t nearly as rigid and clean-cut as it had been a few months ago) wasn’t the best approach.  Life had been _consumed_ by missions, by SHIELD, by these dangerous, difficult lives they led.  She hadn’t even realized until this moment that it had been _weeks_ since they’d done anything together other than work.  And she hadn’t realized until _right now_ that she’d missed it so much.

This was why she’d been so jealous.  _Her territory._   Not his body – _don’t even look at him like that_ – but his friendship.  His sense of safety and security in this new world.  Maybe…  She let herself think it, just this once.  Maybe his heart.

“When we get outta here,” he gasped, trudging up another flight of steps, “we should watch some more.  Felt nice, doin’ that with you.  I really liked it.”  She was _not_ going to blush.  She kept her eyes forward and went up the steps faster.  “Hey!  Wait up!”

“Come on.  Let’s go before they–”

“We were doin’ Disney, right?”  They had been, working movie by movie through Disney’s golden age of animation.  She’d thought he’d appreciate that, given his love of drawing.  _“The Little Mermaid.  Beauty and the Beast._ And _Aladdin?”_   He huffed, pulling his collar away a little.  “Wasn’t that where we stopped?”

She reached the top of the steps.  “Yeah.”

“Liked that one.”  Despite the situation, she couldn’t help but smile.  _Poor street rat pulling himself up and winning everyone over with his good heart?  Can’t imagine why._   “Gotta stop.  Feel like I’m burnin’ up.”  She lifted the rifle she’d taken and inched to the door.  It was eerily quiet.  Except for him.  “The hell’s wrong with me?  This is godawful.  Worse than bein’ tanked.  Bucky and I – you know there was all kinds of bad booze out there thanks to the speakeasies and juice joints and the like, ’cause people made their own stuff and it wasn’t always right, you know?  Moonshine.  Anyway, Bucky and I got this stuff offa a friend of his once.  Think I was seventeen, and it was cheaper to drink the homebrewed juice than the new stuff coming back in, and he and I got completely plastered on it.  Tasted godawful.  First time I ever had anythin’ to drink, and I got sick as a dog.  This is about a step up from that.”  _So much for it being dandy or swell or whatever._ “And you know what we didn’t finish, too?”  She pulled the door open a crack.  There was nothing ahead but another dark hallway.  They were on borrowed time, and she knew it.  Somebody was going to find the bodies strewn below.  “ _Lord of the Rings._   I liked that one.  How come we stopped watching?  Was that before the mission to Beirut?  Yeah, I think it had to have been.  Anyway, I always had a thing for pulp stories, ya know, science fiction and fantasy.  Fun.  And we never saw the end, so we never saw if it it’s true.”

She couldn’t concentrate with his yapping.  Normally she could tune out _anything_.  “If what’s true?”

“If one does not simply walk into Mordor,” he replied in a parody of utter seriousness.  She went cold with horror and alarm for the stupidest reasons imaginable.  Did he _know_ somehow?  About the bet those women wanted to make?  She glanced over her shoulder at him, watching as he pulled at the collar of his suit some more.  _No._   No, he didn’t.  He was just babbling and drugged off his ass.  “Tony showed me this thing called an internet meme, and people made all kinds about that scene with the ring and the elves and the guys at that Council and–”

“Shh!” she hissed sharply.

“But I want to know what Frodo’s doing,” he whined.

_“Shut up!”_

That was harsh enough to silence him, and his eyes glimmered again.  _God._   Who the hell could have anticipated Captain America got this moody and motor-mouthy when he was under the influence?  “Not nice,” he whimpered.  “Just… can’t stop.”

There was no time to hold his hand right now.  She turned back to the corridor, and the soft sound of voices she’d thought she’d detected moments before she could now hear again.  It was getting closer.  “Quiet,” she whispered firmly.  “Stay.”

Stricken, he nodded, and she slipped out into the hallway.  She stayed in the shadows until the patrol was closer.  Once they rounded the corner ahead, she sprung from the darkness, sprinting down the way.  She threw the knife she’d taken before, the blade finding the throat of one of the terrorists.  She was slamming the other into the wall.  “Where is our gear?” she hissed, pinning the man there with her forearm across his neck.  The guy was _terrified_ , practically weeping with fear.  Apparently these morons hadn’t actually realized what it meant to kidnap two Avengers.

And it meant they got their asses kicked.  “Where is our gear?” she asked again, pressing harder.

“In the big man’s office!” the guy finally gasped in halting English.  “D-down the hall!”

In gratitude, Natasha slugged him across the face instead of choking him or breaking his neck.  He hit the floor unconscious.  So that was another patrol down.  Once more, Natasha listened to determine if she’d been found.  It was quiet.  These were among the more incompetent terrorists they’d faced.  _Hurray for that,_ she thought in relief, going back to the stairwell where she’d left Steve.

She wasn’t quite prepared for what she found.  “What the hell are you doing?”

He was half-undressed and obviously entirely out of his mind.  He’d gotten his stealth suit unzipped somehow (which was a fairly remarkable feat considering how his hands were tied), and he’d peeled the top of it off.  Now it was stuck around his wrists where they were bound, the sleeves all tangled up.  The broadness of his shoulders, the swell of his pecs, the hills and valleys of his abs that went on and on…  He was wearing a white A-shirt, but it was so soaked with sweat that it hid _nothing_ , clinging to him like a second skin over his perfect first skin.  She didn’t know whether to be incredibly turned on or absolutely mortified.

Turned on won.  Of course.

“It’s hot,” he whined like a petulant child, like he had no idea how he looked right now.  He probably didn’t.  “Couldn’t stand it.”

Captain America getting naked in the middle of a mission.  _Captain America._   She swore vulgarly in Russian, not caring one bit that he understood her, and rushed across the way to him.  “You – you’re…  You’re a freaking moron!” she hissed.  He frowned, pouted even, that lush lower lip of his sticking out and his eyes filling wetly again, and she was not going to let _that_ or anything else get to her.  She grabbed his uniform, trying to pull it back up, her fingers sliding through the sweat on his arms.  He was drenched.  He was panting.  His eyes were still blown wide.  She could see how fast his heart was beating from a throbbing vein in his neck.  Worry tempered her irritation.  She needed to get him out of here and to a doctor.

There was noise below them, a bang and the cacophony of men coming.  _There we go,_ she thought, almost in relief that she knew where their enemies were.  “Run.”

Thankfully he didn’t need to be told twice.  She grabbed him about the mag cuffs, holding tight to his wrists and sleeves and directing him down the corridor.  He staggered, lagging, out of breath in a way that she’d never seen before.  “Where are we goin’?” he gasped.

“Shut up!  Go faster!”  The sound of gunfire behind them got him doing both those things, though not too well since his uniform was slipping down lower and lower.  He almost tripped as it slipped down around his knees, almost fell, almost got himself shot.  She turned at the end of the corridor, unloading the rifle she had at the open stairwell behind.  Bullets pinged and clanked as the terrorists fired back.  The room the man had mentioned was right there next to them.  “Get inside!”  She didn’t really give him a choice, wrenching open the door and shoving him.  She aimed at the men coming up, shooting until the magazine was empty.  Then she tossed the useless gun and followed him, slamming the door behind them.

Sure enough, they were in some sort of office.  And, sure enough, their gear was there.  That guy had been telling the truth.  Grateful, Natasha stepped inside, heading to the table where their belts and weapons were.  His shield was there as well, glimmering under the lights.  “Block the door,” she ordered.  He limped over and clumsily did that, pulling a full file cabinet over to prevent the door from being opened.  She searched their stuff for their communicators, but there was nothing.  Those had been taken.  Narrowing her eyes in annoyance, she snapped her belt back on, grabbed her holsters and guns and strapped those back into place.  She grabbed his belt, searching all the pouches for anything of use.  _Emergency transponder._ They hadn’t been very thorough.  _Yay._   She pressed the button on the tiny device and tucked it back inside.  “Come here!”

The door shook behind him, jolting him forward.  She dropped down.  His uniform had slid down even lower during all this, revealing he was wearing black boxers.  _God, no.  Are you trying to make this impossible?_   She yanked his clothes back up.  This was not the way these sorts of things generally went.  And – _no_ – her hand brushed against his crotch.  _No, no, no._ Damn it.  He _was_ big.  She tried not to smile, not to even think about it, not to do anything because this was still, _still_ so goddamn wrong.  “What?” he groaned.  “Uh…”

“You can’t run like this,” she snapped, trying to stay methodical as she got his utility belt back on.  She pulled his uniform back up into place, but there was no chance to zip it.  Bullets ripped through the walls and door behind them, tearing the room around them to shreds.  Immediately they both dropped down, him practically on top of her, yanking her close with his arms around her to shield her.  Apparently he wasn’t addled enough to quit his heroics.  He crushed her to the floor beneath him as shards of wood and chunks of drywall coated them.  The noise was deafening.

When it lulled, she squirmed away.  “Okay?” she gasped.  Steve didn’t answer, falling to his side, coated in sheetrock dust.  _“Okay?”_

“Yeah,” he gasped.  He was, she could see.  However, he looked really dazed.  Frightened.  “Nat…”

The door shook again.  The men were trying to ram it.  Natasha pushed him away, reaching for his fallen shield.  She’d never held it before.  It was light, felt right in her hands, as she rose to her feet.  “Come on, Steve,” she beckoned.  “Come on.  We need to get you out of here.”

She got him up.  There was another door on the opposite side of the room.  With the shield covering them both, she pushed him toward it.  Again bullets battered everything around them, but they were lucky as the wayward shots near them hit the vibranium.  She expected to be knocked back, but she wasn’t.  His shield absorbed everything.  Quickly she ushered him out of the remains of the office.

And into some sort of garage.  There was a company of men there, including the terrorists’ leader.  They looked up, obviously surprised to see them despite the noise of the guns behind them.  Natasha brought the shield around to protect them, eyeing their enemies coldly.  There was a dozen of them, and they were obviously loading a couple of trucks.  Oil drums full of something.  Oil, hopefully, and gas, because she wasted not a second, grabbing one of her guns, pulling it, aiming, and firing.

A breath and a blink later, one of the drums atop a cart behind the terrorists exploded.  Natasha’s face was deadly and impassive despite the roar of the explosion, despite Steve’s look of horror beside her, despite the heat blasting over them both.  “Stay,” she ordered again, handing him his shield.  Then she left him there, raising her guns in both hands, striding quickly, mechanically, and purposefully forward.  The terrorists were fumbling, drum after drum exploding around them like dominoes falling as the fire spread.  She didn’t care.  She was nothing but precise, shooting out legs, putting bullets in shoulders, dropping men like flies.  When she emptied one gun, she just used the other and carried on.  Their mission hadn’t been to take out the cell or its base of operations, but she didn’t think Fury would begrudge her getting a little payback for this… _weird_ adventure.  It all happened so fast, and in the space a few seconds, the once quiet and fairly mundane garage was burning and men were groaning on the floor all around her.

She stood in the middle of the flames, sweeping her gaze over her victims.  The head terrorist she’d spared, and he was scrambling for cover behind a bunch of crates near one of the trucks.  She reloaded her guns before stalking closer, easily reaching for the little man as he tried to crawl away.  “Please don’t kill me!  Please don’t!”

Uncaring (and enjoying this probably more than she should have), she grabbed him by his oily hair and yanked him back.  “Still think I’m eye candy?”

The man practically wet himself.  “N-no!  No!  He said you were!  He said it!  He said you don’t know anything!”

“I know he did.  But thing is, big man…”  She leaned close, smiling the most seductive, deadly, _evil_ smile she could.  “ _I_ taught _him_ everything he knows.”  Her grin turned confident.  “Keys, please?”

“I-in the – the – the truck.”

“Thanks.”  One well-placed punch to the leader’s temple, and he was done for.  Natasha let him fall to the concrete.

The garage was burning pretty seriously now.  Alarms were wailing somewhere.  Whatever terrorists remained would probably do well to escape.  She and Steve should do likewise.  She checked in the driver’s seat of the old truck to make sure the keys were in there, and they were, idle in the ignition.  She hopped back out and went to her partner, who was standing amidst the wanton destruction right where she’d left him, slack-jawed and wide-eyed and completely disheveled.  “Holy hell.”  He looked terrified.  “You’re still not mad at me too, are you?  Please don’t shoot me.”

She rolled her eyes and sighed, reaching for his arm.  “Let’s go."

* * *

Natasha drove them for quite a while, fifteen minutes or so, in complete silence.  They left a hell of a wreck in their wake.  They barely got down the windy road a few hundred feet before the whole power plant went up in a gigantic ball of fire and smoke.  Steve had watched that in the rearview mirror like his brain just couldn’t comprehend that she’d taken down all of the terrorists and destroyed their evil lair all by herself and all while lugging his heavy, useless (and apparently half-naked) butt along.  She had a feeling that the drugs had nothing to do with his stupefaction now.

Through the barren wasteland they went.  It was so damn dark, and the headlights on the truck were poor.  The shocks and suspension were about as pathetic, and they bounced over ruts and holes viciously. In the passenger seat beside her, Steve was looking pale now.  He was slumped in his seat, head against the grungy window, grimacing with every rough jolt.  Natasha glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, increasingly worried again.  She reached over and took his hand, giving it a squeeze.  “You with me, Rogers?”

He groaned.  “Think so.  Don’t think heaven would be this–”  Another miserable bump shook the whole truck.  He sat forward, flailing for to which something to hold.  “…painful.”

That didn’t sit well with her, even if he was trying to be facetious.  “Don’t talk like that.”

Shame flashed over his face.  “Sorry.  I, uh…”  He shook his head like he was trying to clear it.  “Still feelin’ weird.”

That hour hadn’t passed yet.  She didn’t have a clock, but her internal sense of time was pretty accurate.  It hadn’t been more than thirty minutes.  And the hour would probably mark the worst point, the lowest point from which things would probably start to get better.  Even if he’d had the faculties to understand that, it felt cruel to tell him.  “Might for a while yet.”  She turned the wheel in time to avoid a rather massive hole in the barely-defined road.  He didn’t say anything.  The high was fading.  She could tell.  Fading and being replaced with that hazy distance the drugs were meant to create.  Aching at that, she tried for a flirty smile.  “Still hot, too?”

He frowned.  “Better than bein’ cold.”

She didn’t know what to say.  This _was_ her territory, and he was her friend.  She was as close to him as she’d ever been with anyone.  Still, there were aspects of their lives they didn’t share.  Her past.  He knew the barest details, maybe a little more than that from things she’d volunteered here and there when she’d been in need of something more.  And then there was what he’d lost.  Peggy, about whom he’d told her.  Some of his friends, too.  But the how of it, the implications of it, were off-limits.

The bitterness in his voice was very clear and very much not him.  Disgust settled in her for an inevitable thought that she knew was coming.  He would _talk._   She could ask him anything.  It wasn’t as if she hadn’t wondered.  Had he been awake when he’d been frozen?  What had it been like to become Captain America?  Had he been in love with Carter?  How did he feel about…  _No._   She wasn’t going to do this.  She wasn’t going to pry.  Not when he couldn’t defend himself.

She wasn’t going to _interrogate_ him.

As it turned out, though, she didn’t need to.  “I hate it here sometimes.”

Natasha closed her eyes a second.  Her gut twisted up inside her so tight she felt sick herself.  She was curious, yes, but she wasn’t equipped to deal with this.  She cared about him, yes, but she didn’t deserve to know his secrets.  “Steve, come on.  Don’t–”

“I really do,” he said softly.  “Hate it.”  Natasha swallowed through a dry throat.  Her heart was pounding now, and she felt flush and uncomfortable, tingling with a cold sweat.  Worse than that, she felt guilty, like she’d failed him somehow.  He gave a slow breath.  “I miss them.”

She felt herself reaching for his hand again.  She hadn’t even thought to.  “I know you do.”

“It’s not just them, either.  I miss home.  I wasn’t there for years before goin’ down, but I always thought…  I’d go back one day, ya know?  And I miss…  I miss _knowin’_ stuff.  Knowin’ how things are supposed to look and what they’re supposed to sound like.  Knowin’ history.  Knowin’ the world.  Knowin’ where I belong in it.  The way things work.  What I’m sposed to be doin’.”  He shook his head.  “Even knowin’ stupid stuff like how things are supposed to smell and taste.  Nothin’s right.  _Nothin’._ ”

“Steve–”

“Just once I wanna feel something that makes sense.  Somethin’ that feels right.  It hurts, Nat.”

This was enough.  She wasn’t going to let him do this to her or to himself.  “It’s the damn drug, Steve.  Come on.  Think about it.  Stop talking.”

“Don’t feel much of anythin’ now,” he commented.  “Maybe it’s better that way.”

Natasha gripped the steering wheel tighter.  Again, she didn’t know what to say, so she just repeated herself.  “It’s the drug talking.  It’s making you numb.  Don’t let it.  And don’t talk.”

He sank down again.  It killed her to see him like this.  An uncomfortable moment of silence came between them.  She still held his hand.  It seemed like he needed the anchor.

Eventually she found a bunch of rocky hills that looked like it would provide a decent hiding place where they could wait for evac.  It couldn’t have been that long since they’d missed extraction because it was still dark.  Since the terrorists had taken their communicators, she didn’t have a GPS to help her find the extraction point.  The transponders were accurate to a five-klick radius, though, so she was fairly certain SHIELD would be able to find them.  She pulled the old truck up between two outcroppings and shut it off.  No sense in wasting gas, and these lands could be crawling with other terrorist groups and insurgents and the like.  They weren’t exactly in friendly territory here.

Sighing, she turned to him.  He was watching her with eyes that were still fever-bright, still not right at all.  “Let’s see if there’s anything in the back,” she suggested.  “Water would be good.  You’re probably dehydrated.”

He didn’t move for a moment, at least not until she did.  She opened her door and slid down.  Her boots crunched on the dry earth.  It was chilly out here and very quiet.  The rocky ridges around them there dark, jagged shapes against a starlit sky.  She spent a moment listening, just to be sure they were alone.  Then she went around to his side of the truck.  He was getting the door open and clumsily climbing down.  “Easy,” she said, reaching up to help him.

He stumbled, dropping his shield with a clatter to the rocky ground, and suddenly all his weight was on her.  She nearly buckled.  “Sorry,” he gasped.  “Sorry.”  His face was pressed right against her neck again.  He was still burning up.  She couldn’t stop herself, wrapping her arms around him.  He needed the touch, the embrace.  _Anchor._   “Sorry,” he moaned again.  “Don’t mean to dump on you like this.  This isn’t you.”

“It’s not you, either,” she murmured back, “but it’s okay.  Let’s get inside.”

They staggered back to the rear of the vehicle.  Natasha opened the doors and helped him up.  She went back to the front, taking the keys and his shield before locking everything up.  Then she climbed in, too.

There wasn’t much light.  Or room.  The back of the truck was loaded with junk, a great deal of older guns and munitions (at least they had that, if it came to it) and some other odds and ends.  After fishing around in some supply cases, she found a few flashlights and switched them on, hugely relieved that they worked.  With that providing at least some illumination, she shut the doors.  “Cozy,” she breathed.

He sat on the floor.  The serum was losing the battle with this drug, whatever it was, and the euphoria he’d felt before was obviously fading.  She could see him crashing, see the defeat in his slumped posture and downturned eyes.  His uniform was still loose on him, not zipped or fastened.  His bound hands were limp in his lap.  He looked miserable, and her heart ached even more.  “Here.”  She handed him another of the flashlights.  The third she switched on and left by the doors on the floor to shine into the back.  Then she went scavenging further.  Thankfully, she found another emergency kit.  It looked older than hell, but there were a couple blankets inside.  No water, though.  Annoyed at that, she brought the blankets over to him.  She crouched in front of him, wrapping one of the coarse, ratty things around him.  “Steve?”

“’m sorry,” he whispered again.

Knowing him, this was inevitably where something like this would end: him feeling guilty for things beyond his control.  “Don’t worry about it,” she assured.  She gave a tender smile, one that she completely meant.  “I’m your partner.  It’s my job to carry your heavy ass when you fall down.”

He managed a tiny bit of a grin.  “’m not that heavy.”

Natasha cocked an eyebrow.  She grabbed the other blanket and draped it across his lap.  It was a loaded question, and she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer because she knew she’d worry (and all of the things she was feeling right now were so damn new and disconcerting and she really didn’t want to add to it).  But she had to ask because she _was_ his friend.  And she did far more than care.  “Are you okay?”

He gave a gruff laugh.  “No.”

“Honest?” she teased.

“Always was before,” he commented, and she had to smile a little.  She reached under the blanket and took his hands.  They were sweaty and clammy.  She squeezed his fingers, slipping her other hand to his neck to get a count of his pulse.  His heart was still racing, though maybe not as badly as it had been before.  “This ever happen to you?”

It wasn’t a good memory.  Still, he couldn’t lie to her, so it felt wrong to do it to him.  “Yeah.  Once.  Back when I first joined SHIELD.  And I’ve…  When I was with the Red Room, I did it to other people.  Marks.  Prisoners.”  Comfortingly, she brushed her fingers across his cheek.  “It wears off.  I know it doesn’t seem like it will, but it does.  At least you got the high part before the downer part.  That’s not normally the way it works.”  He didn’t smile.  God, it physically _hurt_ to see him like this.  If anyone in this world had a reason to be grief-stricken and depressed all the time, it was him.  Yet he never was.  He showed up to work with a positive attitude.  He was eager to help, genuinely happy to do good.  He never burdened anyone.  The Steve Rogers beneath Captain America who’d needed nothing to enhance him…  He was perfect.  And watching him crash now and crash hard…

There had to be something she could do to make this better.  It wasn’t like her to care like this, to _feel_ like this for someone else, but it was driving and desperate, this wish to help him.  She swallowed through a dry throat, rubbing his arm.  “Steve, if you want to talk now, go ahead.  Talk.  Say anything you want.  Tell me anything you want.  I know how hard it is to hold it all in when you’re like this, so go on.  I’ll listen.  I’ll–”

Suddenly he was kissing her.  _He was kissing her._

Natasha grunted in surprise as he closed the distance between them, as he jerked forward and pressed his lips firmly to hers.  His hands came from under the blanket, cupping her face and keeping it to his.  Shock left her reeling.  _Shock._   She couldn’t do anything but feel his dry, warm lips against hers, this one tentative connection seemingly all there was left in the world.

But he ended it as quickly as he started it.  As if he was realizing what he’d done, he jerked away, leaving her cold.  Her eyes snapped back open.  She hadn’t even realized she’d closed them.  “Sorry,” he whispered.  “Sorry.  Sorry, sorry, sorry…  That was wrong.  I shouldn’t have – I didn’t mean to – I – I–”

It was wrong, and she knew it, but it felt _so right_ that she scooched closer and curled her hand under his chin.  Gently she turned his face back.  Her eyes searched his.  “Steve–”

“Will you have sex with me?”

He’d barely spoken the question at all, a whisper of air against her lips, but it was louder than anything she’d ever heard.  Her shock from moments before didn’t compare to her shock now.  “Wh-what?”

Suddenly he was shaking, and his eyes were swimming again, this time in only desire.  They were pools of black rimmed by blue, ardent and wondering.  His grip on her turned frantic.  “I – I want to feel you.  I want…  That’s what I was trying – trying to _say_ before, Nat.  I want you!”

The world collapsed.  She could hardly manage a coherent thought, let alone a useful one.  She couldn’t deny the pull in her core.  It had been there _all this time_ and she’d silently bade it to be quiet.  For days and weeks and months.  He was the first man _ever_ for whom she’d been able to do that, someone she cared about more as a person than as a mission or a conquest.  Now, though, with the fire in his eyes and the burning heat of his body so close to hers, _intoxicating_ …  _No._ “It’s the drug talking.  It’s not you.  You can’t even – do you know what you’re asking?”

There was such a storm of emotion in his gaze.  “I know,” he said firmly.  “ _I know._   I want this, want you.  I’ve wanted you since I met you.  Since the moment I met you.”  On the helicarrier last year.  His eyes shyly taking her in.  She remembered that.  Even then, the connection had been there, this spark, _but she hadn’t let herself see it_.  “Please.  I want this.  I think about it all the time.  All the time.  You…  You’re in my mind when I wake up, when I go to sleep, when I dream…”  _Oh, God._   “I need this.”

She couldn’t handle what he was saying.  And she knew it was true, not just because of the truth serum twisting his mind but because it was _him._   There was nothing about him that wasn’t genuine and sincere and heartfelt.  The furthest from her that anyone could be.  She thrived in lies and manipulation, and here he was, at his most vulnerable, with his secrets pouring out of him and his mind and body rebelling against him and all of the confidence and poise of Captain America stripped away…  _And he was giving himself to her._

“I was trying to say that.”  His voice was throaty, a rasp of emotion.  “When I said spendin’ time with you is nice.  It’s not just nice.  It’s… it’s _everythin’._   The only time I don’t hate it here.  The only time I feel _right_.  The only time I know who I am and where I’m supposed to be.”

“Steve, you’re not in your right mind.  You’re–”  _Drugged.  Crazy.  Not yourself._

“Don’t tell me what I want.  Don’t tell me what I think!”  His eyes flashed anger as they roved over her face in a frenzy.  They were still so close.  “I know what I want.  I know what I’m asking.  I – I waited too long before, and I lost everything.  I can’t make that mistake again.”  His fingertips pressed into her arm, tight and unyielding.  “Please, Nat.  Please, please, please.  I can’t think of anything else.  It’s driving me crazy.  Please, _please,_ have sex with me.  Please!”

She couldn’t do this.  There was so much wrong with it, not the least of which being they were on a mission.  She didn’t care what he was saying, how hot he was, how desperate and willing.  She didn’t care if he wanted her.  _She couldn’t do this._

“Natasha, please,” he begged.  “ _Please._ ”

To hell with it.  She wasn’t perfect.

His next words were swallowed into her mouth as she kissed him forcefully.  And she was moving, tearing the blankets away, pushing herself into his lap.  Submitting to the desires that had been quietly sneaking about her heart for months.  _Surrendering to them_ , because she _wanted to_.  She wanted _him._   And she had for so long.  Like a drug all its own, desire swept her thoughts away.  She let them go, concentrating instead on him, on his mouth and lips that were still closed against hers.  She pushed them open, grasping his face now and holding it steady.  Uncertainly he acquiesced, and she devoured him.  The kiss turned passionate, hard and driving, her tongue pushing inside his mouth.  He grunted in surprise but didn’t pull away, not that he could with her hands tight in his sweat-slicked hair.  She barely let him up for air, indulging entirely in a fantasy she’d never let herself entertain.  It was bordering on debauchery, just how intently she explored his mouth, just how devoutly she memorized how he tasted.  She pulled away only to scramble for his uniform.

Steve groaned.  She grabbed the fabric from his shoulders, yanking it back down now and yanking hard.  It still couldn’t get past his hands the way they were, but she didn’t care.  Her fingers went right to the bottom of his undershirt.  It was soaked through with sweat.  She pulled it up, exposing his abdomen.  Her fingers slicked their way through the perspiration there as she touched what she’d only imagined before.  He moaned more as she latched her lips onto the side of his neck, tasting saltiness and hot, firm skin covering tendons and muscles.  Beneath her his hips bucked up, and she could feel how badly he wanted her.  _He wanted her._ She grinned into his neck, sucking another kiss there.  _He wanted her._

Suddenly the dark, tiny haven of the back of this old, ratty truck was filled with pounding hearts and panting breaths and whimpers.  She ground her hips down, and he gave another half-aborted thrust up, whining softly.  She could have died from that sound.  She kissed him again, and he was pliant now, letting her in instantly.  Pushing herself onto her knees, she reached between them to unclasp his utility belt anew and yank it away.  Her deft fingers slipped down between the rumpled fabric of his stealth suit and his skin freely now, trailing through the sweat and along the miles of heated skin.  His eyes slipped shut, his breath a panting blast of hot air against her lips, as she touched him through his boxers.  A teasing hint of what was to come.  She hardly wanted to wait.  She _didn’t_ want to wait.  She grasped him more firmly, a scratch of nails in sensitive places, and he cried out, face contorted with pleasure.

She grinned a feral thing, nipping at his lower lip before delving inside his mouth anew.  Again he let her, and she took and took.  Heat coiled in her belly at every gasp he gave, at every little whine or cry she wrested from his lips, and she gave herself to it.  This was fast, powerful, and her senses were alive with the furious heat of it.  With how strong but willing he was.  With how he tasted, how he felt, how much he was giving her.  Eventually she couldn’t stand the twisting and teasing anymore, and she pushed him back.

He all but collapsed down onto the blanket that had slid off him, his chest heaving.  She pulled his undershirt up higher to his shoulders and his uniform lower down his thighs before straddling him.  Planting her hands on his chest, she leaned down, possessive as hell but she didn’t care.  She kissed him again, deeply, as deep as she dared, and she rolled her hips against him.  Her nails curled lightly into his flesh, and he groaned, squeezing his eyes shut.  “Look at me,” she ordered softly but firmly, and he quickly did, turning hazy eyes back on her as she loomed over him.  She rewarded him with a gentler kiss, slipping her tongue into his mouth and coaxing him into returning it.  She allowed him a breath, leaning back again to admire him and what she was doing to him.  She clenched his sides with her thighs tighter to get his attention.  “Look at me.”  His eyes tracked her, steeped in arousal, dazed with euphoria.  She grinned lustily and grabbed the zipper of her uniform.  Pulling it down, she revealed skin inch by inch.  He licked his lips, flushed red.  She pulled her arms free, peeling the leather away to reveal her bra.  And she made to take that off.

“I’ve never done this before.”

Just as it had been before, those soft words were louder and heavier than a crack of thunder.  Natasha’s hands stopped instantly.  Her breath locked in her chest.  Her heart stopped.  She stared down at him, at the way he was _looking at her._   Lust.  Adoration.  Reverence.

And fear.  And uncertainty.  And the effect of that drug poisoning his mind and body.

_This was all wrong._

Somehow, even though it made sense, even though other people thought it, even though _she had suspected it herself_ , it still took her completely by surprise.  He’d never done this before.  He’d never had sex before.  And there couldn’t be any doubt, both because of who he was and that truth serum in his blood.

He _was_ a virgin.

Desire had never cooled so quickly, dying from a fever pitch to nothing with a few aching beats of her heart.  Her muscles went lax as the heat abruptly faded, and she sank down onto him in dismay.  She could still feel how hard he was, how much he wanted her.  How much the drugs were making him want her.  _No._   It wasn’t like that, and she knew it.  But she couldn’t do this.  It couldn’t happen like this.  All the things she’d conveniently forgotten came back with a vengeance, and guilt made her gooseflesh prickle.  He was drugged, drunk off of it, not in his right mind.  He couldn’t consent like this.  He might be able to tell her what he wanted, might even think it himself, but there was no way to be _sure_ he wanted it.  And while Black Widow might not ever have cared about something like that, _Natasha_ cared.  She cared deeply.  She couldn’t be selfish.  She couldn’t take this from him.  She couldn’t take advantage of him like this.  She’d be no better than _them_ if she did.  She was his friend, and she had to protect him.

Even if that meant protecting him from her.  And from himself.

Trapped beneath her, he shifted uncomfortably, impatiently.  She hadn’t noticed until now, but his eyes _weren’t_ focusing right at all.  They _weren’t_ tracking her.  He was so pale.  He was shaking.  “Nat?”  Confusion colored his quiet tone.  “Nat, what’s–”

“I can’t,” she whispered.  She climbed off him, sticking her arms back in her suit.

Hurt splayed across his face, and it _killed_ her to see that.  “Is it a problem?  That I haven’t–”

“No.  Yes.”  She sighed.  “I don’t know.”

He looked absolutely horrified.  Deeply embarrassed.  _Betrayed,_ even.  “I said it was okay!” he snapped defensively.  He was struggling to sit up.  The quaking got worse, his limbs not working right, not coordinated at all.  “I told you I wanted this!  I want you!”

“It’s not okay,” she replied, shaking her head.  “It’s not enough.”

His face collapsed.  “I’m not enough.”

“Jesus, Steve, _no_ , that’s not it at all–”

“Then please, _please_ don’t–”

“It’s…  It’s not right.”

His brow furrowed.  He didn’t understand.  She could see that as clearly as she could see her own hands as she grabbed the blanket and draped it around him again.  He pulled away.  “I don’t…”  His kiss-swollen lips trembled (God, just the memory of them against hers was enough to send a spark of desire back through her heart, but she wasn’t going to succumb to it).  He closed his eyes.  “I don’t understand.  Everybody…  Everybody does this.  It’s the way it is.  I _know_ that much, ’cause that’s the way it was, too.  I’m not this stupid prude everyone thinks I am.  I’m not!”  His voice was breaking with emotion.  She didn’t think he even realized he wasn’t helping his case by reducing this to meaningless sex.  He didn’t realize anything now because _he wasn’t thinking straight_.  “I want you.  _I want you._   I want this.  I want to be with you.  This is what people do.  This is what everyone does!  Why can’t we?”

The answer came easily.  “Because you deserve better.”

His feverish eyes shot to her.  She held his gaze, held it and forced him to let that sink in.  It did.  And when it did, it took him down hard.

He slumped onto his side, putting his back to her, curling up into himself.  He grabbed the blanket and pulled it feebly up and over his body.  She watched him a moment, feeling terrible for him.  The silence that came was tense, awkward, and awful.  Hating herself, she pulled up the zipper on her suit, covering her breasts.  She’d done the right thing.  She knew that.  It didn’t matter how badly she wanted this and wanted him.  If she took Steve’s virginity from him in the back of an old van when he was drugged out of his mind…  If she had sex with him like this, it would ruin everything she loved.  Everything she _needed_.

But, _damn_ , this was so hard.

“’m sorry.”  His whisper was ragged and harsh with grief.  “’m sorry.”

Instead of answering, she scooted up behind him.  For a moment she feared her touch wouldn’t be welcomed now.  She went ahead anyway, though, laying her hand on his bicep.  He didn’t even flinch, and maybe that emboldened her more than it should have because she laid down beside him, spooning him.  She wrapped that arm around his chest, pressing close, pulling him to her.  “It’s alright,” she promised.  She kissed the back of his neck, breathing deeply of him just to sate senses that were tingling to have more.  That were already addicted.  Just this little taste had been too much.  She closed her eyes.  “It’s alright.”

They didn’t speak for a while.  Natasha let herself drift in blank thoughts, let herself come to terms with it all.  It wasn’t more than a couple of minutes that she did, but as she came out of her reverie, she noticed all of the tension was gone from Steve’s body.  “Steve?”  He didn’t answer.  She rubbed his chest, digging a knuckle lightly into his sternum.  “Steve?  You okay?”  There was no response.  Concerned, she propped herself up on her elbow and grabbed one of the flashlights.  She shined it on him.

He was unconscious.  His eyes were tightly sealed, and his face was as white as a ghost.  It was waxy, almost, with cooling sweat.  Horrified, she rolled him onto his back.  “Steve!  Steve, can you hear me?”  He didn’t answer.  How could he have gone down so fast?  Panicked, she fumbled for his pulse until his jaw.  It was hard to be calm and count, especially when she felt the flutter of a beat, but she did.  His heartrate was _seriously_ depressed.  “Oh, shit,” she whispered.  The hour had passed.  Like fucking clockwork, he’d sunk deep into the sedating effects of the drug.  The full force of the overdose of depressants was on him now.  She dropped her cheek to his dried, parted lips.  Thank God, he was breathing.  It wasn’t much, though.  “Steve, Steve, wake up.  Wake up!”

He didn’t.  Natasha looked around frantically, shining the flashlight wildly around the truck, but there was nothing she could do.  Nothing other than wait for SHIELD to rescue them.  He needed emergency medical treatment, something to reverse what was happening, and there was no way she could provide that.  No way she could help him now.  Cursing everything and trying to stay calm, she angrily decided there was no warning label under the sun that could express just how much trouble working with him was.  “Hang on,” she implored, covering him with the blanket better, grabbing for his hands and holding them tight.  “Hang on.  You have to.  You owe me that.  You owe me _so much,_ Rogers.”  She choked on a laugh (it wasn’t a sob.  It wasn’t!) and pressed her fingers back to his pulse point.  She counted and hoped and willed this to be okay.  “Wake up.  Please wake up.”  She’d gotten him this far.  Gotten him out.  Kept SHIELD’s secrets safe.  Protected him from the terrorists.  Taken down the entire cell of them.  Even guarded his virtue from a moment of drug-induced lust.

So she sure as hell wasn’t going to lose him now.  “Come on, Steve.  Stay with me.  You think you’re the only one who feels right about this?  About us?  Come on!  Come on.  Please don’t leave me.  _Please…_ ”

* * *

There was a saying.  _You can’t always get what you want._

Natasha was learning that one the hard way.  Not that she hadn’t faced disappointment in the past.  But not like this.  _Not like this._

A week had passed since their bizarre mission.  She hadn’t seen Steve since SHIELD had located their emergency transponder and rescued them.  The evac chopper had arrived not a moment too soon; thanks to the overdose of extremely high potency barbiturates, Steve had been bordering on cardiac and respiratory arrest.  The medics had whisked him away from her, pumping him full of drugs to counteract the deadly effects.  His situation had stabilized in route to the helicarrier, but Natasha’s fear had persisted long after that, long after the doctors had assured her that he would be fine with just a little rest and time to recover.  And he’d recovered.  He’d been released from the med bay the next day, supposedly no worse for the wear.

Again, not that she’d know.  She hadn’t seen him.

She’d debriefed, of course, directly with Fury.  There were aspects of this misadventure she didn’t want on record for Steve’s sake.  Fury read between the lines, of course.  He was far too good at his job not to.  When she summed up the symptoms of this experimental truth serum as “Rogers was not himself”, he’d been smart enough not to pressure her further.  Unfortunately, not everyone else shared the Director’s level of discretion.  Sure enough, despite her best efforts to keep everything under wraps, rumors were flying.  One of the agents who’d participated in their evac had noticed Steve’s state of significant undress and Natasha’s disheveled appearance and Steve’s bound hands and her practically wrapped around him in terror.  Those tidbits tied into the medical reports from the nurses and doctors about how “under the influence” he had to have been, and gossip was spreading like wildfire again.  It was quiet, low-key, hidden because everyone knew Fury would come down like a ton of bricks on anyone caught engaging in it.  But she picked up on it.  She wasn’t sure which was worse: the fact that people thought she’d taken advantage of Steve the way he’d been (and how damn close that was to the truth) or the fact that Captain America’s virginity was up for debate once more.  The damn bet those women in the locker room had made very quickly became a thing.  It was circulating all through the Triskelion, concealed in whispers and quiet laughs.  The first person to deflower Cap or at the very least confirm his prior deflowering won and took all.

Natasha wanted to puke.  She was upset about it, but she was too heartbroken and devastated by it all to actively hunt down the assholes responsible.  She felt pathetic letting her threats go unfulfilled, but…  Well, yeah, “heartbroken” was a good word for how she felt.  So was depressed and stricken and lovelorn.  She hadn’t seen Steve because he was avoiding her.  There was no doubt about that.  She’d given him some space, of course.  Had their situations been reversed and he’d just seen her in an incredibly compromising situation, she’d want distance to process it all and gather herself.  Therefore, she’d provided that, let him be on his own to decompress and repair his ego.  He had to be absolutely mortified.  Even as close as they were as partners and friends, they’d crossed some serious boundaries.  He’d thrown himself at her in every way imaginable.  She had no idea if he remembered that (or how much he remembered at all), but he probably knew enough to realize that _she_ remembered it.  She prayed he didn’t know about the betting pool, the rumors, and everything else circulating SHIELD at the moment (though when Clint, who was generally dense about stuff like this, was coming up to her to ask her about what had happened, the situation was really FUBARed).  Most of all, she prayed Steve was okay, that he wasn’t beating himself up over stuff beyond his control.  That he wasn’t regretting what had happened.  And especially that he wasn’t thinking about doing something drastic, like requesting reassignment.

Or quitting.

She wasn’t going to consider that.  She didn’t want to even address the notion that she could be responsible for Captain America running away from something for the first time in his life.  Running away from _her_ , in fact.  She didn’t typically worry like this, hated it and saw it as a sign of weakness.  Yet as the days went by and there was no contact from him, her concern heightened and amplified into valid and undeniable anxiety.  She kept checking her phone for a text or an email or a missed call.  Nothing.  She slipped around the Triskelion, furtively trying to gather information from other people who’d crossed paths with him without seeming nosy.  Nothing.  He’d seemingly withdrawn from her completely.  That hurt in a way she’d never fathomed.  When had he become so important to her that the mere idea of him leaving sent her into this much of a tailspin?

And what was worse was the fact that she couldn’t get him out of her head.  What was it he’d unwillingly told her when he’d been drugged?  _“You’re in my mind when I wake up, when I go to sleep, when I dream…”_   He was.  He was in a way he’d _never_ been before.  Those teasing desires she’d refused to acknowledge…  They were raging like an inferno now.  The way he tasted and smelled, the way he looked, the way he felt…  The ghost of him was with her always, lingering with phantom caresses that kept her awake at night and haunted her until she was practically squirming with need.  It was brutal, driving her mad, like Pandora’s goddamn box, open now never to be closed again.  The dreams she’d had over the last week…  Unbelievable.  She’d never had an… an _infatuation_ like this before.  Sex was not love.  Sex was meaningless.  Sex was a tool, a weapon, a means to an end.

She wasn’t dreaming about sex with him, though.  She was dreaming about _making love_ to him.  And him making love _to her._   It was amazing and unnerving and driving her _mad._

But day after day went by without him.  Natasha tried to let it go.  She went about her job, working with the other higher level agents on top secret operations, training some of the lower-level recruits, donning the mask of Black Widow and refusing to let it slip again.  She wasn’t going to let this bother her.  She ignored her emotions, this storm of worry, anger, adoration, and bitterness.  Deep in her heart, she knew Steve wouldn’t simply _leave_ her.  He was likely trying to pull himself together enough to face her.  He was too much of a gentleman and a good person to let this fester too much longer.  She made herself think that, have faith in that, _believe it._   So as her anxieties mounted, she stayed patient and waited.

As it turned out, that was exactly what she’d needed to do.

It was Friday night, a rare night she wasn’t working, and her doorbell rang.  She left her teacup and her tablets on her coffee table and stood from her couch before heading to the front door of her apartment.  She wasn’t thinking much of it, not expecting this at all, but, then, _she should have_ because when she stood on her toes to look through the peep hole, _there he was_.  Natasha couldn’t catch her breath for a moment, too surprised to think.  Her heart was pounding, her stomach twisted into knots, and a cool sweat broke out on her lower back beneath her sweatshirt.  She closed her eyes for a moment to gather herself.  This was ridiculous.  _Absolutely ridiculous._   Sucking a deep breath in, she opened the door.

Unabashed relief crossed Steve’s face.  He looked really good.  He was dressed in loose-fitting jeans and that same blue polo shirt underneath a brown leather jacket.  It was the one she’d picked, the one that brought out the color of his eyes.  His hair was neatly brushed and he was clean-shaven.  The serum had erased any sign that he’d been hurt, the bruises long gone, and his color was bright and healthy.  “Hi,” he said quietly.

“Hey,” she greeted.  She could see immediately that he was _extremely_ nervous.  Steve didn’t tend to fidget, not even before the most dangerous of fights, but he was now.  Shifting his weight.  Folding his hands together in front of him.  She didn’t know whether it was adorable or disconcerting.  He seemed fairly frozen in place, like he’d forgotten what he’d come here to say.

Then he jolted.  “I, um…  I’m sorry I haven’t been around.  I was…  Well.”

“Avoiding me?” she finished for him.  Her voice was devoid of heat.

If he blushed any harder, his face would likely burn.  Wincing, he rubbed the back of his neck.  “Yeah.  I’m sorry.  I just… wasn’t ready.”

She nodded, smiling softly.  “I figured.  And it’s okay.”

He nodded, too, but he didn’t say anything further right away nor did he move any closer.  She waited, as awkward as it was.  Everything felt very up in the air, poorly defined, hanging by a thread even.  Eventually he cleared his throat a little.  “I also wanted to thank you, not just for your discretion–”  Lord, he didn’t _know_ about the rumors or the pool or _any_ of it.  “–but for helping me as much as you did.  Some of it’s kinda blurry, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t make you getting us out of there any easier.  Actually…”  He gave a little, crooked grin.  “I’m pretty sure you had to carry my heavy ass out.”

She gave a little laugh.  “Oh, so now you admit it?”

“Yeah.”  He smiled genuinely.  It was the sweetest thing, and she’d never let herself see that before.  _Everything_ was under new light, as though observed with new eyes or surrounded by new context.  He licked his lips a little, and that went straight to the pit of her stomach, a warm, wet jolt of desire that she hoped he couldn’t see.  “I…  You saved my life.  And you protected me, even though I was… not myself.  So I really appreciate that.”

Somehow that didn’t sit well with her.  She wanted more, but again, she couldn’t let him see that.  “That’s what partners do,” she replied simply, and that sounded so damn cold and disappointed to her ears she nearly winced at it.

His confidence faltered.  “Yeah,” he agreed.  “Yeah, it is.  And I, uh…  God, this is hard.”  He took a deep breath, jabbing his hands into the pockets of his jeans, rocking himself a little on the balls of his feet.  “I’m really sorry for falling apart on you.  Multiple times.”  He was chewing on the inside of his lip, like he was going over a checklist or a speech he’d rehearsed in his head.  “And I’m _really_ sorry for… for coming onto you like I did.  For the position I put you in.  It was very wrong and untoward of me to do that to you.  I don’t care how out of my head I was.  I should never have forced the situation.”

“Steve, it’s alright.”  She wanted to be light and dismissive, wanted to pretend it hadn’t affected her, hadn’t condemned her to sleepless nights haunted by his kiss.  She didn’t think she managed it.

“No.  No, it’s not.  I crossed the line, Nat.”  He was adamant, standing taller.  “You deserve better.”

She didn’t know if he was aware that he was echoing her sentiment from that night.  And she didn’t want to hear this.  _This_ _wasn’t what she wanted at all._   No apologies.  No regret.  She craved affirmation, in fact, that what had happened between them was okay.  That she’d been _wrong_ to stop it.  _That_ was what she wanted to hear.  She didn’t want to go back to the status quo, to simply being partners or friends.  She didn’t want to go back to protecting his virtue in the shadows.  _She didn’t want this!_

The couple of feet between them felt infinite, and the distance was growing larger, heartbeat by heartbeat.  He nodded, more to himself than her, and cleared his throat a little.  “Alright, that’s what I wanted to say.  If you, um, want to go to Fury and ask for reassign–”

“Come in.”

“Huh?”

She stepped back from the door, making room for him to enter.  “Don’t you dare spout some bullshit about how I should change partners.”  He flushed, his expression torn between shame at having mentioned it and relief at having her rebuke it.  “And come in.  Please.”

He was aghast.  But his eyes lit up with something she recognized all too well.  _Excitement._ “No, it’s alright.  I don’t want to bother you.”

“It’s not a bother.”  Did she sound too eager?  “I don’t have any plans.  Besides, you said you wanted to start watching movies again.  Pick up where we left off.”  She shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant.  “So let’s do that.  We can order pizza.  Argue the merits of traditional over computer animation.  Come on.”

He hesitated.  She didn’t know what she wanted to come of this, what was appropriate to come of it.  All she knew for certain was she didn’t want him to leave.  Even if he didn’t want her the way he had, now with the heat of the drugs gone from his mind and body, she didn’t want to lose their partnership.  Their friendship.  She’d do anything to protect that, to repair it and restore it.  So she stood there, holding the door open for him, waiting.  Watching.  Praying.  Her heart was pounding.

And then it was soaring when he nodded.  “Okay.  Sure.  That sounds nice.”

She beamed.  She didn’t care how transparent that was.  “Okay.”

He stepped inside her apartment.  He’d never been here before; they’d always spent time at his place in the past.  He spent a moment looking around, but it seemed perfunctory, like something he was doing to try and distract himself.  Natasha closed the door and bolted it, trying not to tremble in relief, trying not to hope to much.  “You want me to take your–”

She’d hardly turned around before he was _there_ , gently grabbing her by the arms and pulling her closer.  Instinctively she tipped her face up to meet his as he leaned down.  Their lips touched in a searing kiss, and now he was the one who deepened it, who pressed for entrance into her mouth.  She opened to his prodding tongue, eagerly accepting it.  He tasted clean and minty, like toothpaste.  Like he’d brushed his teeth before coming here.  Like he’d put on that shirt because _he knew_ she liked him in it.  That made her stomach flutter and her knees go weak.

Abruptly he pulled away again, and every nerve in her body cried out in frustrated misery.  “I’m sorry,” he gasped.  “I just…  I can’t think about anything else.  Nothing else, Nat.  I know I shouldn’t – I mucked it up royally with what I did.”

“No,” she argued breathlessly.  “No!”

“Is this okay?  Do you want me to go?”

She physically hooked her leg around his calf and curled one fist in his coat and the other around the back of his neck.  Her eyes flashed.  “You aren’t leaving, Rogers.  I will tie you to my bed if I have to.  Don’t think I won’t!”

He looked horrified, intrigued, and turned on beyond belief all at once.  That seemed to be all he needed to be reminded he was out of his depth.  That and her grinding against him, holding onto him like she was trying to climb him.  “I really have no idea what I’m doing,” he admitted.  “I’ve never–”

“I know.  I don’t care.”

His eyes were blown wide again, and he pulled her into another kiss.  His hands were huge and powerful, reaching behind her to grab her rear and lift her against him.  With better leverage, she hooked both her arms around his neck and kissed harder, tilting her open mouth to his and sweeping her tongue over his teeth.  He was staggering deeper inside her place, bypassing the living area where her cup of tea was idly cooling, carrying her down the hall toward her bedroom.  The room was gold with her bedside lamps on, the gentle light pushing back the gray evening shadows.  He laid her on the bed beneath him.  She cradled his hips between her knees, propping herself up on her elbows and watching as he fumbled to pull his jacket off.  After managing that, he went for the buttons at the collar of his shirt.  He was clumsy, his hands shaking.  She leaned up further, stilling him.  “Shh, baby,” she whispered against his cheek.  “We have all the time in the world.  No need to rush.”

“Sorry,” he gasped.

“Don’t apologize.”  She gently pushed his hands away.  “Don’t be nervous.  Don’t be afraid.”

He choked out a laugh.  “Yeah, right.  You’re…”  She cocked a sly eyebrow, like she was daring him to continue as she undid the buttons.  “… you.  And I’m way outta my league.”

Pleased by that, she grinned while grabbing the bottom of the polo and pulling both it and his undershirt up and over his head.  She threw them across the room.  “No, you’re not.”  He groaned as she leaned up further, hooking her socked feet around his thighs to keep him still while she kissed his throat.  His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he shuddered at the feeling of her teeth scraping lightly over it.  “And even if you are, I’ll teach you.”

“Nat…”

“Lay back.”

His eyes widened, but she didn’t let him argue, pulling and kissing and dragging him across the bed.  Gracelessly he kicked off his shoes, crawling across her duvet to settle against the pillows.  Natasha grinned sweetly, kneeling beside him and trying to hide just how much she wanted this, wanted him, trying to ignore how the sight of him laying down before her, spread out on her bed, shirtless…  How much that was getting to her.  God, he was beautiful.  She hadn’t been able to see it before, not like this.  A literal Adonis, sculpted of flawless, smooth, pale skin and perfectly proportioned muscles.  He was burning bright with a blush, and it went down his neck, spreading across his chest in the tiniest tint of a rosy hue on otherwise milky flesh.  He was breathing heavily, that exquisite set of pectorals and abdominal muscles smoothly rising and falling as he anxiously waited.  She was tempted to _make_ him wait so she could commit this to memory, every line of him, every curve and angle.  The way he didn’t know what to do with his hands, fidgeting like he wanted to move away but not actually doing it.  The way his hips twitched against her bedding.  The way he was breathing quickly through gaping lips like he’d run farther and fought harder than he ever had before.  The way his eyes burned in desire.  So beautiful.

And it wasn’t just that.  She’d seen attractiveness, even beauty, in men before.  She was Black Widow.  But this…  There was more to this.  More than just physical appeal.  More than just physical strength even.  There was the _soul_ , the man beneath, who was so much more than she had the right to even look upon, let alone touch.  Steve Rogers, who’d needed no enhancement.  She decided right then and there that she would spend the rest of her life worshipping this, not just this body but this heart.  If Steve let her, she’d do _anything_ to bring him pleasure, to respect him, to adore him.  She’d do anything. And she could stare at this forever, all of this golden splendor laid out before her, hers for the taking.  _Hers._

She wanted to ravage him.

She wasn’t going to, though.  No matter how hungry she was (and she was, hungrier for him than she ever had been for anyone else), she wasn’t going to submit to those carnal demands.  This was his first time, and she refused to be selfish.  She had so much experience (so much she almost felt dirty against all this untouched purity), so she had to lead here.  Maybe she deferred to him in a lot of other ways, morally and ethically and on the battlefield, but this was _her territory._   _Nice and slow._   Her own advice echoed in her ears.  _All the time in the world.  No need to rush._

He couldn’t stand it anymore, though.  “Jesus, Nat, please…”

She smiled, grasping both of his hands in her own, kissing his knuckles.  “Put those up.  Under the pillow.”

Again that mixture of panic and arousal crossed his face.  “Huh?”

“Trust me.” 

Uncertainty froze him for a moment, but he did as she asked.  She unzipped her hoodie, revealing a couple layered, cotton camisoles beneath.  He watched, and this time his eyes sharply tracked _every_ movement she made.  There was hunger there, too, and her pulse quickened just seeing it.  She didn’t undress further, climbing over him, kissing him to quiet the question she saw forming on his lips.  “Don’t talk,” she ordered quietly, smiling.  “This is for you, but it’s for me, too.  Let me make you feel good, okay?”

Deer in headlights didn’t quite adequately describe the expression on his face as she touched his wrists where they disappeared under her pillows.  She lightly caressed her way down, the soft hair lining his forearms tickling her fingertips.  Sweeping her hands over his shoulders, she settled her weight down over his groin.  He groaned, eyes rolling back, biting his lower lip.  Leaning down, she did the same, sucking it gently into her mouth and sweeping her tongue over it.  He chased her mouth when she pulled away, but she only laughed lightly, nosing his chin up and kissing her way down his exposed throat.  She paused there, sucking a mark over his pulse point, remembering with a tiny shudder how she’d sat and held him with her fingers pressed _right here_ , counting and praying, terrified about losing him.  His heart was pounding now, fast and hard beneath her lips, and she kissed the little bruise she’d left.  It wouldn’t last, she knew, but she felt proud to have marked him for just this little bit.  _Mine._

She swept her hands lower, over his pecs, pausing just a moment to brush her thumbs over his nipples.  He gasped, arching his back, and she couldn’t help but wonder then just how sensitive he was.  Had the serum made everything more?  Stronger?  She felt devilishly excited at that, at the uncharted territory she was going to conquer.  He was at her mercy.  _Mine._

Because he wanted to be.

She kissed down slowly, taking her time and enjoying it.  Normally she preferred things as they’d been in the truck, fast and unbridled, but now she explored every dip and swell of his chest with her tongue and lips and fingers.  He squirmed beneath her, and against her knee which was slotted between his legs, she could feel him getting hard.  Eventually she drifted down to the light smattering of hair on his belly where it disappeared beneath the waist of his jeans.  She paused there, unfurling her body like a cat over him, looking up to catch his gaze.  His eyes were steeped in anticipation, in passion.  Excitement.  No one had ever touched him like this.  She was the first.

_His first._

She pressed a light kiss right to the skin below his navel before leaning up to undo his belt.  Her fingers were quick and sure, releasing the buckle and then going straight for the button of his jeans.  “Nat,” he whimpered in a half-hearted objection.  “You’re not…  This isn’t fair to you.”

“What did I say about talking?” she teased.  She unzipped his fly.  “Lift.”  He did, and she worked his jeans down his thighs and calves and right off his legs.  She threw them, too.  Then she took a moment to look.

Yep.  Enhanced.  Endowed.  Well-hung.  It didn’t matter how you called it.  Those twits in the locker room were right.  Those few quick touches in the truck hadn’t really done him justice.  Not at all.

Right now he was practically trembling in nervousness as she finally cupped him through his boxers.  With the haze of the drugs gone, everything probably felt _too real_ , so close, so strong and powerful.  She took pity on him, keeping her touch light at first.  She wrapped practiced fingers around his girth, stroking gently, watching his reaction.  The sight of his pleasure was quickly becoming one of the most beautiful things she’d ever known.  He squirmed harder, unable to stay still, tossing his head a little.  Every muscle in his body went rigid.  Still, he kept his hands where she’d told him to.  She slowed her motions, knowing he was close.  He had to be.  For a first time?  She was shocked he hadn’t lost it already.

She grinned wickedly, but she decided then that torturing him was too cruel.  This was a long time coming.  Seventy years.  Longer than that, even.  She let go of his length just to hook her fingers in the waistband of his boxers.  Pulling them down and away, she spent a moment staring at him, at how perfect he was (as if there could be any doubt).  Then all she had to do was press a light, suckling kiss to the rigid length of his manhood, and that was it.

Steve cried out, arching up.  She watched, entranced by the play of ecstasy across his face.  He rode the throes of his release a few long seconds, grunting and groaning, and while he did she tenderly slid up his side.  He panted through gritted teeth, like it had all been too much, deliciously _too much_.  Blindly he reached out for her, pulling her into a desperate kiss.  “God,” he moaned.  “Oh, God, Nat.  Nat, that was…”

 _The first of many._   “It was nothing,” she assured, laying her hand to his cheek to keep his reddened, bitten lips to hers as he shuddered and breathed his way down the other side of his climax.  It wasn’t nothing.  Not at all.  She felt like she’d been given a gift, that _she_ got to be the one to make him feel this good.  _No one else ever had._   She’d live the rest of her life not understanding how she could be so lucky.  “It was nothing.”

“Ev’rythin’,” he slurred, lazily correcting her.  “Felt so good.”

She smiled into his neck, laying down and breathing deeply of him and nuzzling into the warmth there.  “Good.”

“So good.”  He grinned a dopey, contented grin, going loose and pliant beside her, relaxing so deeply that he seemed nearly liquid with it.  Completely blissed out.  “Thank you,” he whispered.  He took her hand, weaving their fingers together, and raised it to his mouth, kissing her knuckles.  “Thank you.”

No one had ever thanked her for getting him off before.  Yet this was Steve, so it was nothing but sincere.  He meant what he said.  And hearing the gratitude and relief in his voice was reward in and of itself.  She kissed his neck, snuggling closer.  “You’re welcome.”

They were quiet for a few minutes as he came down from the high.  After cleaning away his release with a few tissues from the box on the bedside table, she settled down beside him again.  She lazily caressed his chest, close enough to feel his heart slowing in its frantic beat, to feel his breathing lethargically return to normal.  Normally she didn’t have this sort of patience in bed, not unless the situation required it.  Not unless it was necessary.  Now… she couldn’t have cared less about herself.  She’d wait.  Forever, if she had to.

“How come you didn’t ask me?”

She’d drifted a moment.  “Hmm?”

“That night.”  He licked his lips and turned onto his side, pushing her gently off him so he could see her.  His hand fell to her hip, confident and purposeful.  His face was so close to hers, his breath warm and sweet across her lips.  “How come you didn’t ask me?”

She smiled, sliding her thumb across his lower lip.  “I was kinda busy trying to make sure you didn’t lose your virginity in the back of a truck while totally wasted.”  He grunted a chuckle, but his eyes were obstinate.  She sighed, humoring him.  “Okay, what?  What should I have asked you?”

He swept his fingers up her side.  His touch was just as electrifying now as it had been then.  “Why I wanted you.”

“Because you were horny, desperate, and I was available?”

He smiled softly.  “I was kinda hot-blooded.  And desperate.  But that wasn’t why.”

She knew that, of course.  She stared at him, at the peace of his face and the deep blue of his eyes.  That look.  The one from her dreams, from her fantasies.  “Why?” she whispered.  “Why’d you want me?”

“Because I love you, Nat,” he simply said.  There was no hesitation in his voice.  Not one touch of doubt.  Nothing but _sincerity._   “I’ve loved you since I first saw you.”    

The words hung between them.  It was so quiet, so still, that there was so no denying what he’d said.  Still, she tried.  She tried because no one had ever said that to her before.  She felt weak and overwhelmed and shaken to her core.  “Steve, no.  You – you can’t just say something like that.”

“Why not?”  His thumb traced its way down her face, light, almost reverent, in its touch.  It floated across her eyebrow, slipping along the contour of its delicate arch, drifting down the sensitive skin of her cheek.  She couldn’t believe the way he was looking at her.  Had he always looked at her like this?  _“I want to draw you,”_ he’d said.  She hadn’t thought about what he meant by that until now.  She hadn’t thought about what he’d _meant_ when he’d called her beautiful.  “Why can’t I say that?”

She wanted to come up with a reason.  There were some very good ones, she knew.  For one, love was silly, an unnecessary complication, something for children and the naïve.  It had no place in their lives.  Also they were partners, and this was going to change everything.  Their dynamic would shift, and they could never go back.  Maybe she’d been eager to embrace that shift before, but now it seemed so fast and monumental.  And she could already hardly stand his overprotective nature; this would surely make that worse.  But most of all…  She couldn’t believe she was thinking this, but there was no escaping the truth.  He was wholly good and virtuous, and she was damaged.  She was used.  She wasn’t good enough for Captain America.  Those women who’d gossiped about him in the locker room…  She really wasn’t anything different.  She was _worse_ , in a sense, because of the things she’d done.  Even if she’d been forced to do them, she’d still done them and enjoyed the power and pleasure that had come from them.  He did deserve better than that.

He couldn’t _love_ her.

So she wanted to argue, but she didn’t really get the chance.  “You could have…”  He flushed in embarrassment.  “You could have…  You know.”

“Taken advantage of you?” she supplied.  The thought sickened her.  She could have.  She would have.  She nearly had.

But he clearly didn’t see it that way.  “I put you in a really bad situation, and you did the right thing.”

They were too much, the things she was feeling.  Pride.  Happiness.  _Things_ _she didn’t normally feel_.  Never had felt, really.  Not like this.  She joked to cover up just how much she was shaking inside.  “Well, it _was_ tempting.”

Steve laughed lightly.  His fingers gently lifted her chin.  “You’re so much better than you think you are, Nat.  You don’t even realize.  I knew before, but after this…  There’s no doubt in my heart that you’re the one I want.  You’re the only person who’s treated me like… like _me._   Everybody else sees Captain America, but I don’t, you know?  Not when I look in the mirror.  I don’t see this symbol everyone thinks I am.  And having someone as a friend who doesn’t care about… about the legend and the history and the shield and all that…”  He smiled.  “Who cares about _me_ …  It’s like being home, when I’m with you.  Where I belong.  That was what I was trying to say before.”  He sighed.  Her heart was swelling so much inside her that it hurt.  “I love you.  That’s why I want you.  I want to do this with you.”  He gave another little, adorable laugh.  “Probably a good thing I was jazzed as all get out.  Never would have had the guts to tell you otherwise.”

She couldn’t stay still anymore.  She grasped his face and kissed him, seeking to taste and _possess_ like a thirsting man in a desert.  For a breath or two, the kiss was quiet and calm, but she felt his arousal stirring again against her thigh when she draped it across his body.  Grinning like a fool into his mouth, she reached down to touch him again.  At the mere brush of her knuckles to his length, he jerked against her.  “You ready to pop that cherry, Cap?”

He seemed surprised, that this was where she was headed after his declaration.  “Huh?

“Are you…”  She grabbed him, squeezing.  “…ready to…”  She stroked harder, insistently, enjoying all too much just how he came apart at her touch.  “…make love to me?”

“Oh, God,” he whimpered, shaking with need.  “Yes.  Yes, for Christ’s sake, Nat, _yes_.”

Letting him go, she sat up a little, pushing him up as well.  She grasped the bottom of her camis, pulling them up and over her head.  Then she settled back into the pillows, laying down and scooting beneath him, directing him to lean over her now.  Just doing this, getting underneath him, with him in all of his naked glory and bracketing her body with all of that _strength_ , was beyond arousing.  She had to take a deeper breath to get herself under control.  She took his hands in hers.  “Touch me, Steve,” she invited.  That deer in headlights look was back as she drew his hands to her breasts.  “Please.”

His fingers were like limp putty for a moment.  But she let go, and he cupped her breasts through her bra.  “No idea what to do here,” he admitted.  “Pretty sure I’m gonna make a mess of this…”

“No,” she assured again.  “Already told you.  Don’t be nervous.”  He didn’t seem convinced.  His eyes were as wide as saucers, staring at his hands where they rested over the pink satin of her bra like he couldn’t believe this was actually happening.  She made herself be patient for all of one second before reaching up to push the straps of her bra down her shoulders.  She smiled at him, leaning up to capture his lips.  “It’s alright.  Whatever happens, it’ll be wonderful because it’s you.”

That gave him the confidence he needed.  He bowed his head to kiss her again, bolder and teasing with his tongue, and she could have sung she was so happy.  His fingers squeezed at her breasts, finding her nipples through the fabric, and she gave a relieved sigh into his mouth.  He rubbed his thumbs over them, pulling away to look at her eyes, like he was trying to gauge her reaction.  She offered a sloppy grin.  “There you go.”

He rolled his eyes, blushing furiously.  “Lord, Nat.”  She could see how turned on he was, but she had to ignore it.  She wanted this to go all the way, so to speak, and she had a feeling it wouldn’t if she tormented him.  Finally he got brave enough to sneak under the cup of her bra.  The pads of his fingers were thick, rough, and callused, catching lightly on her smooth skin, prickling the tiniest ripples of gooseflesh in their wake.  And his touch was pretty clumsy and unrefined, somehow equal parts tentative and overeager, but it was the most wonderful thing she’d ever felt.  She sunk her teeth into her lower lip, tipping her head back and moaning, when he finally reached her nipples.  “Can…”  He licked his lips, faltering.  “Can I…”

She grinned again, pushing herself up a bit to unhook her bra.  She pulled it off and laid back, looking up at him.  His jaw was fairly well on the floor.  She’d been suspecting it since they’d staggered into her bedroom, but the way he was staring pretty much confirmed that he was as virginal as virginal could be.  Once more he seemed afraid to touch her, simply watching like she’d blown his mind.  God, that was more empowering than it should have been.

He did touch her, though, the tips of his fingers skimming down the rise of her breasts to her nipples.  He seemed entranced by that, by watching his own hands exploring her skin.  It was single-handedly the hottest thing she’d ever seen, him _experiencing_ this for the first time.  She was so, so honored it was with her.  She wanted to tell him that, but the words died in her throat when he leaned down to kiss her neck.  Instead she pushed him lower, running her hands through the thickness of his hair to direct him where she wanted him.  Again, he got braver with that, leaving light kisses down her throat and collarbones.  She felt the swipe of his tongue there and practically shuddered with a tingling mixture of excitement and relief.  Carefully she pushed him lower still, an unspoken invitation, and with her permission, he kissed his way to one of her breasts.  His fingers got tighter on her nipple, and then his mouth finally sealed over it.

Yeah, he had no idea what he was doing.

She couldn’t have cared less.

Tightening her grip in his hair, she let him figure it out, let him have the moment.  He was smart and turned on beyond belief, so it didn’t take long.  Eventually the wet heat got _hotter_ , and the pressure turned _tighter_ , and she gave him an encouraging moan.  He was squeezing and pinching at the other side, swiping his tongue over the nipple in his mouth and letting her whimpers and whines guide him.  A moment later he leaned back, wiping the wetness away with his thumb.  “Am I…”

“Don’t stop,” she ordered firmly, and he went back to his task on the other side.  Natasha groaned.  The light scrape of his teeth bordered on pain, sweet and delicious.  He tormented her, sucking hard, getting more and more confident as she writhed under him.  She got frustrated after a bit, pulling him up gently by his hair.  _Slow,_ she reminded herself.  _All the time in the world._   She kissed him, licking along his lips until he groaned.  He settled on his side next to her, worshipping her neck, as she grabbed the top of her yoga pants and pushed them and her panties down.  “Help?”

He jerked upward, maybe not realizing what she was doing.  His eyes went impossibly wide again as if to say, _“there’s more?”_   Devilishly she grinned.  “Come on.”  He nodded and did as she asked.  Laying naked before him, she spread her legs slightly in invitation.  As terrified as he’d seemed before, that didn’t compare with how positively panicked he looked now.  “Come on.  It’s okay.  Here.”  She reached for his right hand.  Pouring every ounce of what she knew into her lusty gaze, she brought it up to her mouth.  Carefully she pressed her lips onto the fleshy part of his palm.  He stopped breathing as he watched her make her way up his hand, sucking his index and middle fingers into her mouth, kissing and nipping and teasing.  Then she guided his hand down her body.

He was as rigid as a tree.  She could see him swallow.  “Nat–”

“Nice and easy,” she instructed, bringing his hand between her thighs.  “Gently.”  She helped him, carefully showing him how to touch her.  Awestruck, he watched and let her lead.  She slipped her other arm around his neck, pulling him closer.  He was burning hot and hard against her leg.  “You’re not gonna hurt me,” she promised before kissing him.  “It’s alright.”  She put his fingers right _there_ at the top of the juncture, and she arched her back and moaned, maybe making a tad bit more of a show of it just to console him.  Watching her nervously, he waited for her nod.  Then he pressed harder on the spot with his thumb and rubbed in a slow, agonizing circle.  Pleasure spiked through her, and now she wasn’t exaggerating.  “Like that.”  He did it again and again, and she dug her nails into his wrist, urging him to continue.  Again, it was obvious he had no idea what he was doing.  There was no finesse, no technique.  And, _again,_ she didn’t care at all.  Sweat prickled on her forehead, and she rolled her hips against his touch, sliding his hand down further between her legs with the motion.

This one he figured out for himself.

His finger slid inside her, long and thick, and she cried out.  Immediately he stopped, horrified.  She practically gouged him with her nails, grabbing at his hair with her free hand and pulling him closer to kiss him.  “No, no, no,” she assured wetly into his mouth.  “No.  Don’t stop.”  He groaned, touching her again with his thumb, pushing his finger in deeper, and heat coiled tighter in her core.  She bit his lower lip, panting into his mouth, pushing her hips down to meet the motion of his hand.  He pressed in another finger, twisting and exploring, brushing against that _other_ place inside her most assuredly by accident.  Frustrated, she whined.  “God.  Right…  Right there.”  He followed her directions, driving his fingers back in and going right where she needed them.  The pressure was so good.  Not enough, though.  Not nearly enough.  “Enough foreplay,” she gasped.

“Huh?” he dumbly responded.

“ _Enough foreplay,_ ” she said more forcefully, and he looked devastated like he’d done something wrong.  She was trembling with pleasure, but she still managed to roll her eyes at him as she pulled his hand away and arranged herself before him, legs splayed wide to him.  He still seemed confused, and she considered touching him, but it didn’t look like he needed any help in that department and she was afraid he’d lose it before they even got to main event if she did.  Instead she closed her knees around his hips.  Her heels she dug into the backs of his thighs.  “Ready?”

He gulped and shook his head.  “What about–”

Of course he would worry.  She pushed herself up, grasping his face between her hands and kissing him tenderly.  “I can’t get pregnant.”  A look of concern and confusion crossed his face.  “And I’m clean.  But if you want a condom there’s–”

“It’s okay?”

She smiled, nodding.  It was.  This was more intimate.  Far more than just a fling or a good time or anything else.  He was almost shaking as she pressed even closer, as she reached down between them to grab him and guide him inside her.

It was slow.  He pushed in bit by bit, caught between being overwhelmed by what he was experiencing and being afraid he was going to hurt her.  It was very him, and she could hardly breathe, both for the power of everything she felt and the _way_ he felt inside her.  He was so big, so long and thick, and it was incredible.  This, more than _anything_ she’d ever felt before…  This was _perfect._

Once he was seated inside her, she took his face and pulled him down all the way, blanketing her body with his.  Normally she didn’t like this, being trapped beneath another person, being _vulnerable_ , but with him, there was nothing to fear.  He breathed in short, shuddering gasps against her ear, and she ran her hands up and down his back, feeling muscles rippling in response as he struggled to hang on.  “Deep breath,” she said softly.  “Look at me, baby.”  He pulled back to do as she asked, eyes so bright.  “You okay?”

He groaned, grinning, trying to hold it all in.  “Yeah.  _Yeah._ ”  He licked his lips again.  “You?”

She laughed lightly.  “Yeah.”

“Can I…”

“For the love of God, _yes._ ”

He pushed himself up on his fists, bracketing her shoulders with his arms, and _moved_.  Every muscle in Natasha went taut, sparking with pleasure as he thrust into her.  Instinct was driving him now, it seemed, and he pushed deep, deeper than she thought she’d ever felt before.  Maybe that was nonsense, but she didn’t care.  She held tight to it and to him, to this moment where everything was new and wonderful and complete.  She was close enough from everything, the thrill of it all, the way he’d touched her, that it didn’t take much for the heat building and building inside her to explode.  She keened, arching her back in pleasure, grabbing him tight as her release pounded over her.  There was no air to breathe.  No words to speak.  No thoughts to think.  Nothing but this throb of ecstasy beating inside her, spreading across nerves and bones and muscles and flesh like fire, burning her and ruining her for anything other than this.  For anyone other than him.  She didn’t know it was possible to fly like this.  She never wanted to come down.

In retrospect, it was probably a good thing she’d been that close.  He managed only a handful of thrusts, barely that even, before he climaxed with a cry.  His hips snapped forward once more, and he went rigid, held still by the intensity of it all, of what he was feeling for the first time.  Of what she was giving to him.

Then he went limp, practically collapsing on top of her, sweaty and hot and heavy.  She returned to herself faster, catching her breath, hearing and thinking above the pounding of her heart.  She swept the flats of her palms up his back in a comforting caress, feeling him shudder, his breath a wet suck and blow against her shoulder.  She let her eyes slip shut in contentment, tightening her arms and legs about him, trapping him against her, inside her.  _With her._   “I love you, too,” she whispered.

* * *

Natasha wasn’t quite sure what happened after that.  She was in a place where everything was too colorful, too sweet and perfect and beautiful, to be real.  Somehow he summoned the energy to pull free of her.  Somehow he climbed out of the bed, pulling her bedspread back and gently moving her beneath it.  Somehow he sank back down beside her, gathering her in his arms.  They shared lazy, languid kisses and did nothing but feel sated and satisfied and bask in the proverbial glow.

After a while, he sighed, one arm tucked behind his head, slipping the fingers of his other through her mussed hair.  He’d never been so relaxed.  “That was…”

She had her head pillowed on his bare chest, tickling across the well-defined muscles of his stomach, grinning like a fool and not giving a damn.  “Yeah?”

“ _Amazing._ ”

“ _Yeah._ ”She couldn’t help herself, leaning up and practically beaming at him.  He looked dazed, like the cat that had unexpectedly and at long last gotten the cream.  “Live up to your expectations?”

“Oh, hell, yes,” he huskily murmured.  “Definitely.  More than.”

Giggling, she snuggled back down against him.  “Glad to be of service.  It’s not every day you get to deflower Captain America.”

“Can we do it again later?”

“Oh, yes.  Very yes.”

He smiled, dipping his lips down to kiss the crown of her head.  “You know what else?”

She rolled her eyes a little.  “What?”

“I’m a couple hundred bucks richer.”

 _What?_   She leaned up, brows knitting in surprise.  “What do you mean?”  He gave a sneaky grin, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.  Then it dawned on her.  _Rogers, you little shit…_   “You knew about the pool.  About who would sleep with you first?  And _you_ put money in it?”  He pursed his lips like it was nothing, but he was grinning so hard, so damn proud of himself, that it just looked silly.  “You’re unbelievable.  I – I was…  Damn you, Rogers, I was trying to _protect_ your virtue, and here you are, freaking trolling everyone!”

“You were…”  Now his forehead furrowed in confusion.  “Oh.”  That grin turned smug and knowing.  “ _Oh._ So _that’s_ what you were all hot and bothered about.  Right before the mission.  The gossip.  You were trying to fend off…”  He laughed.  She glared.  “Oh, that’s rich.  Not that I don’t appreciate it, love, because I do.  I really do.  But I thought I’d made you sour at me somehow, and here it was just you bein’ jealous.”

“I wasn’t jealous,” she declared.  She smacked his belly loud and hard enough that the sound of it echoed in her bedroom.  He laughed an “ow”, squirming a little.  She shook her head, laying back down over him.  “I can’t fathom why anyone thinks you’re this paragon of innocence and virtue.”

“ _Was,_ ” he corrected.  “I was, thank you very much.”  She laughed.  Ridiculous.  Absolutely ridiculous.  “Well, anyway, I figured I could influence the outcome a little.  Bet on the sure thing.”  He pecked her lips.

She blushed.  “I was _not_ a sure thing!  You don’t get to do that!”

He laughed, sliding out from under her to kneel at her bedside.  She tried to stand, but he stopped her, gripping her hips and kissing her belly.  Natasha groaned.  Here it was, that _image._   Visceral and true and in the very real, very naked flesh.  If those other women could see this…  _One does not simply sleep with Steve Rogers._   She shook her head at that, at just how much they’d gone through to get _here_.  _You got that right._

He looked up from burrowing his face in her lap, eyes shining with far more than just lust.  More than love and adoration, too.  He was vibrant, radiating just how content he was.  Just how _right_ everything felt.  “Hey, dinner’s on me since I’m flush now.”  She cocked an eyebrow.  “ _Really_ flush.  I’ll buy us pizza.”

“Pepperoni?”

“You bet.  And I’ll get the movies.”

She lightly pushed him away.  “Fine.  Get moving because you owe me.”

He seemed entirely too pleased with that.  He spent a moment looking for his boxers, tossed unceremoniously before, and she laughed, smacking his ass as he bent over next to the bed.  “Go ahead.  All yours, doll.”

“Go get us food, lover boy.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said cheekily, giving her a jaunty salute after pulling on his underwear.  “Pizza.  Beer.  And _Aladdin._ ”  He leaned down to kiss her, so confident now she could hardly believe it.  Heat rushed through her as she hooked her arms around his neck and basked in it.  He pulled away, grinning.  “A whole new world.”

She laughed as he walked out of the bedroom.  Unable to wipe the grin from her face, she flopped back down onto her bed and stared up at the ceiling, happier than she’d ever been.  More satisfied.  More _alive._   “You can’t always get what you want,” she whispered to herself.

Of course, there was the other part of that saying. 

 _But if you try sometimes, you just might find…  You get what you need._

**THE END**


End file.
